| Published on 28-02-2008 In National |
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Written by
A. Jayaram |
When Justice Ravi Vijayakumar Malimath took the oath as a judge of the High Court of Karnataka on Monday last, a history of sorts was created.
He represents the third generation in his family to become a judge of the same High court. His grandfather Late Justice S.S.Malimath had become a judge of the High Court after the reorganisation of the State in 1956. His father Justice V.S.Malimath was chief justice of Karnataka and later Kerala.
While there are several cases of sons of former high court or Supreme Court judges being appointed to those courts, there might not be many cases of a three-generation appointment.
Justice Ravi Malimath became an additional judge of the High Court along with Justice Bangalore Venkataramaiah Nagarathna. The latter too has a judicial lineage and she is the daughter of the former Chief Justice of India E.S.Venkataramaiah who held the highest judicial office from June to December 1989.
However this is not to suggest that the two have made it to the High Court Bench because of being children of judicial dignitaries. Both have the right credentials to become high court judges. Unlike in the past, the political executive has no role today in judicial appointments.
Justice Nagarathna is the second woman judge of the High Court of Karnataka. The first being Justice Manjula Chellur. Karnataka High Court had lagged far behind its Kerala counterpart in that regard. Kerala, why the country, got the first woman High Court judge in 1959, when Anna Chandy was appointed.
It might be that like some other professions, some children of lawyers or judges follow in the footsteps of their fathers or mothers. Children of doctors, chartered accountants, university professors, film stars take up the profession of their parents and they certainly have an advantage over the first generation entrants, which cannot be denied. The judiciary and the Bar have laid before themselves the healthy convention that near relatives of sitting judges should not practice before the same High Court. The Bar councils occasionally come out with the list of the violators. Some years ago, the State Bar Council had come out with a list of near relatives of judges practising in the High Court of Karnataka.
An analysis shows that in the long history of the Mysore and later Karnataka judiciary, there have been some cases of children of judges being elevated to the Bench. There are two interesting cases of father and son pairs becoming Chief Justices of the Mysore High Court. Two of them were Britishers. R.B.Plumer who was Chief Judge of Mysore from 1924 to 1927 was the son of the first Chief Judge D.
G.Plumer (1884-89). M.Sadashivayya who became the chief justice of the Mysore High Court in 1970 was the son of P.Mahadevayya who was chief justice in the early 1930s. Another son of Mahadevayya, Justice M.Sadananda Swamy also became a judge of the Karnataka High Court and retired as Chief Justice of the Guwahati High Court.
Even at the national level, there is the case of a father and son duo becoming Chief Justices of India. Justice M.H.Kania who was Chief Justice of India during 1991-92 is the son of the first CJI Sir Harilal Kania (1950-51). There are also other cases of father and son becoming judges of the apex court- Fazl Ali (Senior) and Murtuza Fazl Ali, N.L.Bhagwati and P.N.Bhagwati (former CJI) and K.S.Hegde and Justice Santosh Hegde, the present Lokayukta of Karnataka.
There is a more interesting case of a father and son serving as Chief Justices of two High Courts at the same time. After his retirement from the Madras High Court, P.Venkataramana Rao Naidu served as Chief Justice of princely Mysore between 1943-48. In 1947 he saw his son P.V.Rajamannar elevated as the first Indian Chief Justice of the Madras High Court. Venkataramana Rao's son-in-law Koka Subba Rao was Chief Justice of India during 1966-67.
In Karnataka, we also have the example of the son of a former Vice-Chancellor of the Mysore University becoming the head of the same university. That was the case of the former Vice-Chancellor Dr.Shashidhara Murthy who is the son of Dr.D.Javare Gowda, the noted scholar in Kannada who had held the same office in the early 1970s. Decades ago even the Calcutta University had such a record. The Hindu Mahasabha leader and former Union minister Dr.Shyama Prasad Mookherji and his father Justice Sir Asutosh Mookherji served as vice-chancellors of the University.
Shyama Prasad came to be appointed at an unthinkable age of 35.
But the case of dynastic rule in Indian politics is different. Unlike in the professions, the son of a politician need not have to prove his worth to be accepted as a leader. What was inaugurated by the Congress and Jawaharlal Nehru, who first appointed his daughter Indira Gandhi as the Congress President in 1957 replacing U.N.Dhebar, has come to afflict most other political parties. We have four generations of the Nehru-Indira Gandhi family not merely in politics, but at the top. This is not to deny that some of them like Indira Gandhi were born to rule.
Unlike in politics, it is not the rule of succession in the professions including law. It is presumed that it is success in the profession, which brings elevation. |
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