Outgoing Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi had his hand full in his last week in office. He decided landmark cases such as the Ayodhya title dispute, Rafale defence deal, entry of women into Sabarimala tempole and bringing CJI in RTI Act ambit.
Friday being CJI Gogoi's last working day, he sat in court no. 1 for 4 minutes SA Bobde who will be taking over from him as the next Chief Justice of India. CJI Gogoi issued notices in all ten cases that were presented before him and lastly he wrote a note on why judiciary is needed to ‘maintain silence while exercising their freedom’.
In the three-page note, Gogoi referred to multiple requests from the press for one-on-one interviews before explaining why he couldn’t honour them. “Judiciary’s strength lies in public confidence and trust, earned through work as judges and not good press,” he said
“I am keen that you would appreciate that the ordinary freedoms are finely balanced in our institutional functioning, while you have the Bar whose members can exercise their freedom of speech to the extent of even pushing the boundaries of such freedom, the bench requires its judges to ‘maintain’ silence, while exercising their freedoms,” he added.
Set to demit office on Sunday, Justice Gogoi's tenure as CJI was not free of controversy as he faced allegations of sexual harassment, of which he was cleared.
As a judge he had courted controversy by joining three other senior most judges of apex court in holding a press conference on January 12, 2018 in which they virtually revolted against his predecessor Justice Dipak Misra.
However, he is more likely to be remembered for the Ayodhya verdict that gave Hindus the 2.77 acre disputed land for construction of Ram Temple, and ordered that Muslims be given a 5-acre land at a prominent location to build a mosque in the holy city.
