#HeadsUp: Two Supreme Court judges to retire, RamJeth completes 75-years at the Bar

The upcoming week would be an eventful one for both the Bar and the Bench at the Supreme Court of India. While two judges, Justice V Gopala Gowda and Justice C Nagappan are retiring this week, Senior Advocate and former Law Minister Ram Jethmalani will complete seventy-five years at the Bar..Both Justice Nagappan and Justice Gowda have had relatively short tenures at the apex court. Justice Nagappan was elevated to Supreme Court in September, 2013 while Justice Gowda became a Supreme Court judge in December of 2012. Justice Nagappan will retire on October 3 and Justice Gowda will have his last working day on October 5..The SCBA will be organising farewell functions for both the judges on their respective retirement days. In a break from tradition, the farewell function for Justice Nagappan will be held in SCBA Bar room and not the Supreme Court lawns as is usually the case...With the retirement of the two judges, the Supreme Court’s strength will come down to twenty-six..Besides the farewell functions, the SCBA will also felicitate two stalwarts at the Bar – Ram Jethmalani for completing 75 years as a lawyer and K Parasaran, who will be celebrating his 90th birthday this year. The function felicitating the two senior counsel will be held on October 4 at the Supreme Court lawns..Besides the celebratory aspects of these functions, there is another reason why they will be keenly followed – the recent tussle within the SCBA Executive committee..SCBA President Dushyant Dave and Secretary Gaurav Bhatia are at loggerheads once again with Dave sending out communications that Bhatia has been suspended from the Executive Committee of SCBA. This has, however, been disputed by another faction of the Executive Committee, which has termed Dave’s action as “illegal and arbitrary”..What is interesting is that it was during an SCBA function earlier this year that the rift within the SCBA first came to fore. During the farewell function of Justice MY Eqbal, Dave had absented himself from the function. Furthermore, Chief Justice TS Thakur had himself spoken about the differences between Dave and Bhatia in his speech. It had finally culminated in Dave resigning from his post. Later though, he withdrew his resignation after CJI Thakur’s request..With new round of allegations and counter-allegations by the Executive committee members, the three SCBA functions this week could throw up some surprises..Read the details of SCBA functions below.