Supreme Court judge Justice S Ravindra Bhat retired from service today today after a tenure of little over four years at the apex court..Justice Bhat obtained his law degree from the Campus Law Centre, Faculty of Law, University of Delhi in 1982 and he enrolled as a lawyer the same year. He practiced before the Supreme Court where he became an advocate-on-record in 1989. He was appointed as an additional judge of the Delhi High Court on July 16, 2004 and as a permanent judge on February 20, 2006. He was appointed as Chief Justice of the Rajasthan High Court in May 2019 and served there till his elevation to the Supreme Court on September 23, 2019. He received the customary farewell in court and by the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) as he served his last day.For the first time in recent memory, the Chief Justice of India (CJI) was not part of the ceremonial bench or the SCBA farewell. CJI DY Chandrachud is presently in the United States. Justice Bhat, therefore, held court for the last time in court hall 2, sitting alongside second senior-most judge, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul. Justice Bhat said he was happy to be walking out from the apex court through Court 2."This is a great court to be in. I see Justice [HR] Khanna's portrait here. Justice Kaul said he knows me for 41 years and as a judge for 16 years, and I could not have wished for a better place to go out from. In 1982, I had walked in this court to assist my senior; my stint at the Bar meant 22 years of practice at the Supreme Court," he said..In his speech at the SCBA farewell, he spoke of how some of his brother judges were batchmates in law school and colleagues at the Bar."I consider myself very lucky to have ended my career after being a member of this bench. It is just a happy chance that we four classmates of the same batch - the Chief Justice of India, Justice Kaul, me and Justice Hrishikesh Roy - were in the bench. Justice [KV] Viswanathan and I were colleagues in the chambers of Senior Advocate C Vaidyanathan.".During the ceremonial bench earlier in the day, Justice Kaul said that Justice Bhat is very precise and succinct in his judgments, and has taken up very difficult issues. Later in the evening, he added that Justice Bhat had left the Supreme Court a better institution.Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta said that the nation will remain indebted to Justice Bhat for the manner in which set down the law in several key cases. "Non-lawyers in his family will not be able to realise the intellectual loss to the institution. He has devoted so much...I will divulge that the memory of Justice Bhat with regard to judgments and jurisprudence is such that he knows most of them by heart," SG said.
Supreme Court judge Justice S Ravindra Bhat retired from service today today after a tenure of little over four years at the apex court..Justice Bhat obtained his law degree from the Campus Law Centre, Faculty of Law, University of Delhi in 1982 and he enrolled as a lawyer the same year. He practiced before the Supreme Court where he became an advocate-on-record in 1989. He was appointed as an additional judge of the Delhi High Court on July 16, 2004 and as a permanent judge on February 20, 2006. He was appointed as Chief Justice of the Rajasthan High Court in May 2019 and served there till his elevation to the Supreme Court on September 23, 2019. He received the customary farewell in court and by the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) as he served his last day.For the first time in recent memory, the Chief Justice of India (CJI) was not part of the ceremonial bench or the SCBA farewell. CJI DY Chandrachud is presently in the United States. Justice Bhat, therefore, held court for the last time in court hall 2, sitting alongside second senior-most judge, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul. Justice Bhat said he was happy to be walking out from the apex court through Court 2."This is a great court to be in. I see Justice [HR] Khanna's portrait here. Justice Kaul said he knows me for 41 years and as a judge for 16 years, and I could not have wished for a better place to go out from. In 1982, I had walked in this court to assist my senior; my stint at the Bar meant 22 years of practice at the Supreme Court," he said..In his speech at the SCBA farewell, he spoke of how some of his brother judges were batchmates in law school and colleagues at the Bar."I consider myself very lucky to have ended my career after being a member of this bench. It is just a happy chance that we four classmates of the same batch - the Chief Justice of India, Justice Kaul, me and Justice Hrishikesh Roy - were in the bench. Justice [KV] Viswanathan and I were colleagues in the chambers of Senior Advocate C Vaidyanathan.".During the ceremonial bench earlier in the day, Justice Kaul said that Justice Bhat is very precise and succinct in his judgments, and has taken up very difficult issues. Later in the evening, he added that Justice Bhat had left the Supreme Court a better institution.Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta said that the nation will remain indebted to Justice Bhat for the manner in which set down the law in several key cases. "Non-lawyers in his family will not be able to realise the intellectual loss to the institution. He has devoted so much...I will divulge that the memory of Justice Bhat with regard to judgments and jurisprudence is such that he knows most of them by heart," SG said.
