Altamas Kabir

CJI Altamas Kabir passes away: After Dec 16 gangrape-murder, he gave voice to people’s anger

Justice Kabir would be remembered for the gentle yet firm nature with which he handled court work as well as his administrative job as the head of India's judicial system.

JUSTICE ALTAMAS Kabir, the 39th Chief Justice of India (CJI) for nine months — between September 29, 2012 and July 18, 2013 — died on Sunday at Apollo Gleneagles Hospital in Kolkata after prolonged illness. Kabir, who was suffering from a kidney ailment and related complications, was on life support. He died at 2.52 pm. In a statement, the hospital said Kabir had undergone a kidney transplant in 2007 and was suffering from “end stage renal disease, type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypertension, coronary artery disease and urinary tuberculosis”. He is survived by his wife, daughter and son.

Kabir was born on July 19, 1948, in Kolkata. After completing his LLB and MA from the University of Calcutta, he enrolled as an advocate at the Kolkata Bar Association in 1973 and practiced in the district court and Calcutta High Court. He was appointed as a judge in Calcutta High Court in 1990.

In March 2005, he was appointed as the Chief Justice of Jharkhand High Court before being elevated as a judge in the Supreme Court in September, the same year.

After the infamous December 16, 2012 gangrape and murder of a young girl in Delhi, Kabir gave voice to the pent up anger of the entire country.

He said he would have certainly participated in the protests that rocked the nation in the aftermath of the incident, had he not been holding a Constitutional post.

“What happened that day (December 16) was not something new… but it caught the imagination of the people and led to a tremendous upsurge, and this upsurge as I have said earlier also, was fully justified. What started as a protest, as a mark of showing one’s anger, it was all genuine, absolutely necessary… I salute everybody who took part (in the protests). I wish I could also have been there, but I can’t,” he said a few days after the incident occurred.

Kabir would be remembered for the gentle yet firm nature with which he handled court work as well as his administrative job as the head of India’s judicial system.

Once, when the then UPA government did not agree with his recommendation of a retired judge for a tribunal job, he politely but firmly told the then attorney general Goolam Vahanvati that unless the government could prove the unsuitability of the former judge, he would not recommend another name. Not one to ever lose his cool, Kabir, as jurist Soli Sorabjee said on Sunday, was an “erudite” judge who heard counsel patiently even when they spoke about irrelevant things.

As a Supreme Court judge, he headed the bench that delivered the verdict that said that even if a legislator is thrown out of his party, that person continues to remain a legislator and is entitled to participate in the proceedings of the House. He was also part of the bench that heard the case of two Italian marines who had allegedly shot dead two Kerala fishermen taking them to be pirates.