Justice P Sathasivam was Friday sworn in as the 40th chief justice the of the nation by president Pranab Mukherjee at the Rashtrapathi Bhawan. He took over the post from justice Altamas Kabir, who served as the CJI for over nine months.
Justice Sathasivam, 64, took oath in the name of god at a brief ceremony at the Darbar Hall of Rashtrapati Bhavan. Prime minister Manmohan Singh, vice-president Hamid Ansari, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, leader of the Opposition
in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, her Rajya Sabha counterpart Arun Jaitley, NDA working chairperson LK Advani, CPI leader D Raja, several Union ministers were present at the ceremony.
Justice Sathasivam was elevated to the Supreme Court in August 2007 and would demit office on April 26, 2014. Like his predecessor, justice Sathasivam is opposed to scrapping of the present collegium system for appointment of Supreme Court and high court judges. But at the same time, he has admitted that there are drawbacks in the collegium system and efforts can be made to overcome the shortcomings to ensure transparency."There are drawbacks, I accept. But these drawbacks can be settled," he had said yesterday.
Born on April 27, 1949, he enrolled as an advocate in July 1973 in Madras and was appointed as a permanent judge of the Madras High Court in January 1996.
Later, he was transferred to the Punjab and Haryana High Court in April, 2007.
Elaborating on his plan during his less than 10 month long tenure as CJI, Sathasivam had said yesterday that "delay in disposal of cases is a major issue. This difficulty can be overcome by enhancing judicial productivity both qualitatively and quantitatively.
Sathasivam said he will work towards reducing the backlog of cases by "fixing time limit for arguments, submitting written notes," etc. Some major judgements by Sathasivam include the Mumbai blasts case and that of Pakistani scientist Mohammed Khalil Chisti.
A bench of Sathasivam and B S Chauhan had upheld the conviction of actor Sanjay Dutt and several others in the Mumbai blasts case. The bench had slammed Pakistan and its intelligence agency ISI for training the perpetrators of the 1993 blasts and failing to discharge its obligation under international law to prevent terrorist attacks emanating from its territory.
"It is devastating to state that Pakistan being a member of the United Nations, whose primary object is to maintain international peace and security, has infringed the recognized principles under international law which obligate all states to prevent terrorist attacks emanating from their territory and inflicting injuries to other states," it had said. Another bench headed by him that had set aside the conviction of Pakistani scientist Chisti.
Sathasivam had also delivered the verdict in the triple murder case of Australian missionary Graham Staines. He had upheld the conviction of Dara Singh in that case.
