The Verdictum: Justice SJ Mukhopadhaya

Justice Sudhanshu Jyoti Mukhopadhaya was elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court on September 13, 2011. In a tenure that lasted almost four years, or 1309 days, Justice Mukhopadhaya was involved in passing 302 orders and judgments. On March 13 of this year, he became the latest Supreme Court judge to have retired..After passing the B.Sc. exam in 1971, he tried his hand at being a medical sales representative. However, eight years later, after finishing his LLB, he went on to enrol as an advocate. Having found his true calling, he built a successful practice, appearing at the Patna High Court. He was designated Senior Advocate in 1993..Justice Mukhopadhaya made the switch to the Bench in November 1994, when he was appointed as a Permanent Judge of the Patna High Court. In November 2000, he was transferred to the Jharkhand High Court, where he would have three stints as Acting Chief Justice. In August 2006, he assumed charge as a judge of the Madras High Court, and was later made the Chief Justice of Gujarat in 2009. He was elevated to the apex court in September 2011..Month-wise distribution of judgments.During his tenure at the Supreme Court, Justice Mukhopadhaya delivered around 20 judgments and orders per month, on average. As is evident from the table below, the month of July was a glaring exception. During his most productive month, he delivered a staggering 77 judgments in the July alone. Apart from the vacation month of June, his least productive months were October and May..Day-wise productivity.Justice Mukhopadhaya delivered 0.83 judgments and orders per day in the month of July. This figure stands out as an anomaly, with his daily productivity plunging to as low as 0.12 and 0.17 judgments per day in the months of October and November. The productivity for the month of June was understandably low, at 0.06 judgments per day..Year-wise distribution.Justice Mukhopadhaya’s most productive year was 2013, during which he was involved in 106 orders and judgments. This is closely followed by 2014, at 99 orders and judgments..YearNo. of judgments/orders2011132012572013106201499201527.Bench-wise distribution.Justice Mukhopadhaya delivered 27% of his judgments (82) sitting with Justice GS Singhvi. He also delivered 34 orders and judgments sitting with Justice V Gopala Gowda. Further, he was part of 24 judgments delivered by a bench comprising three or more judges. Out of these, 17 were 3-judge bench judgments, 6 were Constitution Bench judgments and one was a four-judge bench judgment. During his tenure, he sat with Chief Justice Lodha on a number of cases..Case-type distribution.A majority of Justice Mukhopadhaya’s orders and judgments (182) dealt with civil appeals. He was also involved in quite a few criminal appeals – 102. He also heard a curative petition and a couple of criminal contempt petitions..Notable Judgments and Orders.During his three-and-a-half year stint as a Supreme Court judge, Justice Mukhopadhaya authored 122 judgments. He was instrumental in laying down precedents in various areas of law. He was also involved in a number of high-profile cases like Salman Khan’s black buck case. In 2013, he set aside a Rajasthan High Court judgment which suspended the actor’s conviction so that he could travel abroad..In 2014, he was part of a Constitution bench that dismissed a writ petition challenging the Constitutional validity of Article 15(5) with respect to private unaided educational institutions. He was also part of the bench that dismissed the Karnataka Government’s writ petition seeking to make Kannada the medium of instruction at the primary level in all government schools in the state..In Justice Sunanda Bhandare Foundation v. Union of India, he was part of the bench that directed the Central and state governments to ensure implementation of the Persons with Disabilities Act 1995 so that visually challenged persons could avail of reservations in teaching posts across Indian universities..Lily Thomas v. Union of India was a landmark judgment that held that section 8(4) of the Representation of People’s Act was ultra vires the Constitution. The provision allowed MPs and MLAs who were convicted of offences to hold their posts till they could appeal against their conviction..Justice Mukhopadhaya was also responsible for commuting two death sentences to life imprisonment in Navneet Kaur v. State of NCT of Delhi and Santosh Kumar v. State of MP. However, he was part of the bench upheld the death sentence of Devender Pal Bhullar, who was convicted under the TADA. In that judgment, it was held that the death was justified as a penalty in heinous crimes..Perhaps the case that he will be remembered most for is Suresh Kumar Koushal v. Naz Foundation, arguably one of the most controversial Supreme Court judgments of recent times. He was part of the bench (along with Justice GS Singhvi) that set aside the Delhi High Court judgment decriminalizing Section 377 of the IPC.