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Born on 18th November 1954 Ranjan Gogoi who served as the 46th Chief Justice Of India for a period of 13 months from 2018 to 2019. The construction of Ram Mandir over historically disputed land in Ayodhaya was a lawful decision in which major opinions were given by him. He was nominated for Rajya Sabha on 16th March 2020 by President Ram Nath Kovind. He is the 3rd Supreme Court Justice to serve in the Rajya Sabha. Before being the Chief Justice of India, he was a judge of the Supreme Court of India from April 2012 to October 2018 and before that, he has been the Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court from 2011 to 2012. There has been a contribution of significant judgments on various cases like a reassessment of Amitabh Bachchan’s income, on Govindaswamy, on people who are originally inhabitants of Assam. One of his major contributions has been the Ayodhya Ram Mandir and Babri Masjid dispute.
The former Chief Justice of India took oath as a member of parliament in Rajya Sabha on Thursday 19th March 2020 in the presence of the chairman of Rajya Sabha. This seat was vacant after KTS Tulsi completed his term in Rajya Sabha. This nomination of our former Chief Justice who retired 4th months ago after the Ayodhya verdict came out has been a good topic of controversy in the political room of our country. The opposition pointed a lot of arguments and in fact, started protesting in the house for Gogoi being a member of Rajya sabha. The law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad defended Gogoi with the following statements “this house has a great tradition of many eminent persons of diverse fields including former CJIs”. It was grossly unfair in the part of the opposition to portray such behavior. Trinamool’s Mahua Moitra also reacted to this issue of Gogoi by saying that what the opposition has done today is demonstrating that if the government is ready to sell every last vestige of judicial propriety lest when opposition will not be a part of it, that is why we walked out of it.
A lot of people are thinking why justice Gogoi got nominated as a Rajya Sabha MP but you will be surprised to know that there are various other reasons which make him deserving enough for this position other than his major contributions in the Ayodhya dispute.
Rajya Sabha is an honor granted to those who have done a great contribution to society in their chosen fields. Gogoi has managed to prevail the politically sensitive cases very carefully for the Modi government. Since his retirement was just another indication that he wanted a post-retirement job. As compared to the governorship this position in Rajya Sabha is actually a decline of authority but Gogoi certainly enjoys it. The major reason is precedence.
Despite the criticism over accepting this offer given by the opposition, he said that it will be an opportunity to project the views of the judiciary before the legislative and vice-versa. He said he accepted it since he was confident that the legislature and judiciary must work together for nation-building at some point. Critics have termed his nomination as the “Institutional Erosion” for the upper house. Technically there is absolutely no law that bars judges from being nominated in Rajya Sabha. Although he is the first judge of the supreme court who has been appointed just a few months after his retirement.
Lastly, we hope that former CJI Ranjan Gogoi stands against all the odds present and makes the most genuine decisions for the society by being a Rajya Sabha member, congratulations to him and to the ruling party.
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