New Delhi:

In a rare display of emotion in public, Supreme Court judge Justice BV Nagarathna fought back tears while remembering her parents and her mother’s lifelong support for her father, former Chief Justice of India ES Venkataramiah.

Justice Nagarathna, who is in line to be the country’s first women chief justice, was addressing a gathering at the National Law School of India University in Bengaluru. The prestigious law school is hosting a lecture to mark the birth centenary of Chief Justice Venkataramiah, who taught there following his retirement. Justice PS Narasimha, also a Supreme Court judge, addressed the memorial lecture at the law school.

Addressing the event, Justice Nagarathna said she considers it her good fortune that she found life’s important lessons in her father’s multifaceted personality. “I have always remained a student of law under his guidance. I have observed in him a strength of personality, which has only fortified my personal belief that fighting a good cause is most rewarding,” she said.

Justice Nagarathna said that her father’s love for literature and Indian culture and his thirst for knowledge exposed her to varied subjects.

Known for her sharp observations, Justice Nagarathna fought back tears while remembering her mother’s support to her father. “My mother, Smt Padma was quick to appreciate what my father’s true calling was. And left no stone unturned in supporting and enabling him to realise his dreams. importantly, she knew what it took to remain a conscientious and hard-working judge and always support him. She was known for her pragmatism and her patience,” she said before inviting her top court colleague to deliver the lecture.

Justice Nagarathna could be seen wiping her eyes after she resumed her seat on the stage.

In her address, Justice Nagarathna also recounted her father’s words when he was elevated as a judge. “A judge is always on trial and I hope to be acquitted honourably at the end of my tenure.”

She also narrated an interesting anecdote about two lawyers meeting on the train — one would go on to become the President, the other Chief Justice of India.

“In December 1946, the All India Lawyers’ conference was held in Nagpur. Since there was no direct train between Bangalore and Nagpur, one had to go to Madras i.e. Chennai to take the Grand Trunk Express. In the railway compartment, there were a few lawyers travelling from Bangalore as well as Madras and everybody became friendly owing to shared interests,” she said.

“Forty-three years later, in June 1989, two gentlemen from the railway compartment met at the Ashoka Hall of Rashtrapati Bhavan, one as the president of India, Shri R Venkataraman who was to swear in the other, Justice ES Venkataramaiah as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India. When my father mentioned this to President R Venkataraman after the oath ceremony, he too recollected the train journey to Nagpur,” Justice Nagarathna narrated.

New Delhi:

Judges should be mindful of not castigating past judges only because they reached a different outcome while deciding a case, Justice BV Nagarathna said today. The remark was made as the Supreme Court ruled that all privately owned property does not qualify as community resources that the State can take over for the common good.

The landmark verdict was delivered by a nine-judge Constitution bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and comprising Justice Hrishikesh Roy, Justice Nagarathna BV, Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia, Justice JB Pardiwala, Justice Manoj Misra, Justice Rajesh Bindal, Justice SC Sharma and Justice AG Masih. The bench passed the ruling with an 8-1 majority. Three judgments were authored — the Chief Justice wrote one for himself and six colleagues, Justice BV Nagarathna wrote a concurrent but separate judgment and Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia dissented.

One of the past verdicts referred to extensively during today’s judgment was the 1977 ruling in the State of Karnataka vs Ranganath Reddy case. This case addressed the issue of nationalisation of private transport companies and the extent to which the State can intervene in private enterprises. The matter had come up when the then Karnataka government brought a law to nationalise private bus services. A seven-judge bench had then ruled with a 4-3 majority

that all private property did not fall within the ambit of material resources of the community. Justice VR Krishna Iyer, one of the judges in the minority, had contended that both public and private resources fell within the ambit of “material resources of the community” under Article 39(b) of the Constitution.

“We have been guided by the thought that an all-too-large gap between the law and public needs, arising out of narrow notions, must be bridged by broadening the constitutional concepts to suit the changing social consciousness of the emerging Welfare State. Institutional crises and confrontations can be and should be avoided by evolving a progressive interpretation, discarding over-sensitivity to under-valuation when private property is taken for public good,” Justice Iyer had said.

Delivering the judgment today, the Chief Justice said, “Does material resource of a community used in 39B include privately owned resources? Theoretically, the answer is yes, the phrase may include privately owned resources. However, this court is unable to subscribe itself to the minority view of Justice Iyer in Ranganath Reddy. We hold that not every resource owned by an individual can be considered a material resource of a community only because it meets the qualifier of material needs.”

The Chief Justice also pointed out that Justice Iyer referred to Karl Marx in his judgment. “The judgment is rooted in the economic ideology that private property can be used by the state for the welfare of people. The role of this court is not to lay down economic policy but to facilitate to lay down economic democracy,” he said, adding that the country’s economy has shifted from a socialist approach to a liberal economic regime.

“The doctrinal error in the Krishna Iyer approach was, postulating a rigid economic theory, which advocates for greater state control over private resources, as the exclusive basis for constitutional governance,” the Chief Justice said. 

In response, Justice Nagarathna said Justice Iyer’s judgment on community resources came against a backdrop of a constitutional and economic structure that gave primacy to the State in a sweeping manner. “Can principles of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation adopted in India since the year 1991, reforms in the economy and structural changes that have been brought about in these last three decades hold a mirror against the socioeconomic policies that were followed in the decades immediately after India attained independence? As a result, can the judgments of this Court which interpreted the Constitution to be compatible with the policies of the State then be considered to be “a disservice to the broad and flexible spirit of the Constitution” and the authors of the said judgments being critiqued today?” she said.

Justice Nagarathna flagged some of the Chief Justice’s observations on Justice Iyer’s judgment and said they are “unwarranted and unjustified”. “It is a matter of concern as to how the judicial brethren of posterity view the judgments of the brethren of the past, possibly by losing sight of the times in which the latter discharged their duties and the socio-economic policies that were pursued by the State and formed part of the constitutional culture during those times. Merely because of the paradigm shift in the economic policies of the State to globalisation and liberalisation and privatisation, compendiously called the “Reforms of 1991″, which continue to do so till date, cannot result in branding the judges of this Court of the yesteryears ‘as doing a disservice to the Constitution’,” she wrote. 

She noted that such observations made by the Supreme Court create a “concavity in the manner of voicing opinions on judgments of the past and their authors by holding them doing a disservice to the Constitution of India and thereby implying that they may not have been true to their oath of office as a Judge of the Supreme Court of India”. Justice Nagarathna, however, agreed with the majority judgment and said a “flexible interpretation” of the Constitution is needed as times change.

Justice Nagarathna said the Indian judiciary has an obligation to meet newer challenges by “choosing only that part of the past wisdom which is apposite for the present without decrying the past judges”. “I say so, lest the judges of posterity ought not to follow the same practice. I say that the institution of the Supreme Court of India is greater than individual judges, who are only a part of it at different stages of history of this great country,” she said. 

Justice Dhulia, who delivered a dissenting judgment, too, flagged the Chief Justice’s remark in the majority judgment on Justice Iyer’s ruling. “I must also record here my strong disapproval on the remarks made on the Krishna Iyer Doctrine as it is called. This criticism is harsh, and could have been avoided,” he said. 

New Delhi:

In a dissenting verdict, Supreme Court judge Justice BV Nagarathna on Thursday said if the power to levy taxes on mineral resources are given to the states, there would be “breakdown of the federal system” as they would compete among themselves and jeopardise mineral development.

Justice Nagarathna was the lone judge on the nine-judge constitution bench who did not concur with the majority verdict penned by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud which held that the legislative power to tax mineral rights vests with the states and the royalty paid on minerals is not a tax.

Holding a contrary view, Justice Nagarathna, in her 193-page verdict, said royalty payable on minerals is in the nature of tax and not merely a contractual payment.

“If royalty is not held to be a tax and the same being covered under the provisions of the MMDR Act, 1957, it would imply that despite Entry 54-List I and the declaration made in section 2 of the MMDR Act, 1957…, taxes on mineral rights could be imposed by the States over and above payment of royalty on a holder of a mining lease,” she said.

Entry 54 of List I of the Constitution pertains to regulation of mines and mineral development by the Centre.

“There would be unhealthy competition between the States to derive additional revenue and consequently, the steep, uncoordinated and uneven increase in cost of minerals would result in the purchasers of such minerals coughing up huge monies, or even worse, would subject the national market being exploited for arbitrage,” Justice Nagarathna said.

She said the steep increase in prices of minerals would result in a hike in prices of all industrial and other products dependent on minerals as a raw material or for other infrastructural purposes.

Justice Nagarathna said as a result, the overall economy of India would be affected adversely which may result in certain entities or even non-extracting states importing minerals which would hamper foreign exchange reserves of the country.

“This would lead to a breakdown of the federal system envisaged under the Constitution in the context of mineral development and exercise of mineral rights. It could also lead to a slump in mining activity in States which have mineral deposits owing to huge levies that have to be met by holders of mining licences,” she said.

She said another impact of this would be an “unhealthy competition” to obtain mining leases in states which have mineral deposits and who do not wish to impose any other levy apart from royalty.

“It is, therefore, necessary to realise why the framers of the Constitution took a clue from the Government of India Act, 1935 in order to distribute the legislative powers between the Union and the State List insofar as regulation of mines and minerals is concerned,” Justice Nagarathna said.

Referring to future separate policy decisions to be taken by mineral-rich states, she said there might then be legal uncertainty which would cause adverse economic consequences including on mineral development in India.

She overruled a 2004 verdict by a five-judge constitution bench, which while hearing a dispute over imposition of cess on land and mining activities between the state of West Bengal and Kesoram Industries Ltd, had held that royalty was not a tax.

Justice Nagarathna, however, concurred with the CJI that the scope of the expression “any limitations” under Entry 50 of List II is wide enough to include imposition of restriction, conditions, principles as well as a prohibition by Parliament by law.

Entry 50 of List II pertains to taxes on mineral rights subject to any limitations imposed by Parliament by law relating to mineral development. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Hyderabad:

Supreme Court Judge BV Nagarathna on Saturday cautioned against instances of governors sitting indefinitely on bills passed by elected legislatures, referring to the case involving the Punjab Governor.

In her keynote address at the inaugural session of the fifth edition of Courts and the Constitution Conference, held at the NALSAR University of Law here, Justice Nagarathna spoke about the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly case as another instance of gubernatorial overreach, where the governor lacked sufficient material to declare the floor test.

“This is not a healthy trend under the Constitution to bring the actions or omissions of the Governor of a state for consideration before constitutional courts,” she said.

“I think I must appeal that the office of a governor, though it is called a gubernatorial post, the governor’s post is a serious constitutional post, the governors must discharge their duties under the constitution in accordance to with the Constitution so that this kind of litigation before the law courts is reduced,” Justice Nagarathna added.

She said that it is quite embarrassing for the governors to be told to do or not to do a thing.

So, a time has come where they would be now told to discharge their duties as per the Constitution, she said.

Justice Nagarthna’s comments came days after a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud expressed “serious concern” over the conduct of Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi for his refusal to reinduct DMK leader K Ponmudi as a minister in the state cabinet.

Justice Nagarathna also spoke on her dissent on the demonetisation case.

She said she had to dissent against the move by the central government as in 2016, when the decision was announced, the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes comprised 86 per cent of the total currency notes in circulation, and 98 per cent of it came back after they were banned.

In October 2016, the Indian government demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 banknotes, purportedly in a blow against the black money.

“I thought it was a way of converting money into white money by this demonetisation because firstly, 86 per cent of the currency was demonetised and 98 per cent of the currency came back and became white money. All the uncounted money went back to the bank.

“Therefore, I thought it was a good way of getting unaccounted for cash accounted. Therefore, this common man’s predicament really stirred me. Therefore, I had to dissent,” the judge said.

The conference heard addresses from judges of the Supreme Courts of Nepal and Pakistan Justices Sapana Pradhan Malla and Syed Mansoor Ali Shah.

Telangana High Court chief Justice Alok Aradh and NALSAR Chancellor Justice S Ravindra Bhat also spoke at the conference, a press release from NALSAR said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)