Justice Jasti Chelameswar, the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court, is demitting office on Friday after nearly seven-year tenure in the apex court, according to a Times of India report.
Justice Chelameswar had also served in Gauhati High Court when he was elevated as the chief justice of the Gauhati High Court on May 3, 2007.
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Justice Chelameswar created history of sorts in January early this year when he mounted a virtual revolt against Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra along with justices Ranjan Gogoi, MB Lokur and Kurian Joseph.
In an unprecedented move, the four top judges called a press conference raising questions on ‘selective’ allocation of cases including the sensitive case of special CBI judge BH Loya, who died on December 1, 2014.
Justice Chelameswar, who turns 65 today, was also part of the nine-judge bench that that gave the historic verdict declaring right to privacy a fundamental right.
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Justice Chelameswar, who was also part of the five-judge Constitution bench led by Justice JS Khehar that had scrapped the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Act to deal with appointments in higher judiciary, was the lone dissenting judge.
Justice Chelameswar was also part of the bench that had struck down the controversial section 66 A of the Information Technology Act which provided the law enforcement agencies the power to arrest a person for posting offensive contents on web the grounds of violation of fundamental rights.
He was also heading the three-judge bench that had referred the pleas against Aadhaar to the larger bench while making it clear that no person shall be deprived of social benefits due to want of the 12-digit national unique identification number.
Notably, Justice Chelameswar had refused the invitation of the Supreme Court Bar Association to participate in a farewell function.
However, he followed the tradition and sat on the bench along with the Chief Justice of India on May 18, his last working day in the Supreme Court before it closed for the summer vacation.