President Ram Nath Kovind on Monday nominated former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi to the Rajya Sabha. "President is pleased to nominate Shri Ranjan Gogoi to Council of States to fill the vacancy caused due to the retirement of one of the nominated member," the official government notification read.
"In exercise of the powers conferred by the sub-clause (a) of clause (1) of Article 80 of the Constitution of India, read with clause (3) of the article, the President is pleased to nominate Shri Ranjan Gogoi to the Council of States to fill the vacancy caused due to the retirement of one of the nominated member", the notification further read.
President Kovind nominates former CJI Ranjan Gogoi to Rajya Sabha
The vacancy was created due to retirement of KTS Tulsi. Gogoi (65) retired as CJI in November last year after a tenure of a little over 13 months.
He will be the first former Chief Justice of India to be nominated to Rajya Sabha. Former Chief Justice Ranganath Misra was also a Rajya Sabha member but he was elected on a Congress party ticket.
Justice Ranjan Gogoi, who retired on November 17, 2019, served as the 46th Chief Justice of India. He is credited with bringing the curtains down on the decades-old politically and religiously sensitive Ayodhya land dispute.
He was among the four senior-most judges who held an unprecedented presser in January 2018 questioning the then CJI's way of functioning.
Later at a public function, Gogoi had remarked that "independent judges and noisy journalists are a democracy's first line of defence".
A bench headed by him gave clean chit to the Modi government twice -- first on the writ petition and then on the pleas seeking review of the December 14, 2018 verdict -- in the Rafale fighter jet deal with French firm Dassault Aviation.
The bench had warned Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for wrongly attributing certain remarks to the apex court in the Rafale case and asked him to be more careful in the future.
Besides, Gogoi headed a bench which in a landmark verdict held that the office of the CJI is a public authority under the Right to Information Act, but "judicial independence has to be kept in mind" while disclosing information in "public interest".
A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Gogoi struck down in entirety the rules formulated by the Centre on appointment and service conditions for members of various tribunals and referred to a larger bench the issue of examining the validity of the passage of the Finance Act, 2017 as Money Bill.
He also led a bench that monitored the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
Gogoi headed the benches that ruled on matters like entry of women in Sabarimala temple and Rafale fighter jet deal.
A lot of controversies plagued the NRC but Gogoi stood his ground and later came out in public defending the decision to hold the exercise to identify illegal immigrants.
As the CJI, he took tough decisions against erring judges and recommended their transfers and a woman high court judge was virtually forced to resign.
He also headed a bench which dealt with contempt proceedings against former apex court judge Markandey Katju for his remarks against the judiciary in his blog.
(With PTI Inputs)
Also Read: Who is Ranjan Gogoi? All you need to know about President's Rajya Sabha choice
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