New Delhi, Sep 29 : Justice Altamas Kabir, the seniormost judge of the Supreme Court, was Saturday sworn in as the 39th Chief Justice of India.
He was administered the oath of the office by President Pranab Mukherjee at a ceremony at 11.30 a.m.
Justice Kabir succeeds S.H. Kapadia who demitted office Saturday. He will be the Chief Justice of India for nine months till July 18, 2013.
The ceremony was attended by Vice President Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, cabinet ministers, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley, Supreme Court judges, lawyers and other invitees.
Born on July 19, 1948 in West Bengal, Justice Altamas Kabir studied law at the University of Calcutta.
After completing his MA and LLB, he was admitted to the bar in 1973. He practised civil and criminal law in Kolkata at the district court and the Calcutta High Court. He became a judge in the same court on August 6, 1990.
Justice Altamas Kabir became the Acting Chief Justice of the Jharkhand High Court on 3 January 2005, an elevation made permanent on March 1, 2005.
He was elevated to the Supreme Court of India as Justice on September 9, 2005.
The new chief justice of India is due to retire on 19 July 2013.
Visitors to the Supreme Court next week are bound to be struck by the contrasting styles of Chief Justice S H Kapadia, who retired on Friday and the new incumbent.
Kapadia disposed of 50-odd cases in two hours and there was hardly any sitting in the afternoon.
His successor has a slower rate, an average of 15 cases in that time.
He gives ample time to all parties to present their case in their own way, and writes clear judgments.
Justice Kapadia specialised in tax laws and grilled lawyers who were weak in this field.
Justice Kabir is more or less a generalist, equally good in civil and criminal matters.
Justice Kapadia's speed of disposal could also be attributed to the fact that he's usually read all the briefs beforehand and has already made up his mind in advance what to do in Court.
Justice Kabir however, is more in the mould of Justice MC Chagla who never believed in reading the briefs prior to the hearing or making up one's mind in advance.
He prefers to listen carefully, and at length if required, in Court to achieve just the same ends as Kapadia.
Where Justice Kapadia repeatedly expresses a deep and abiding contempt for out of turn mentioning (i.e., seeking relief in a matter that is not listed on that day), Kabir listens to advocates mentioning matters with just the same seriousness and thought that he gives to a regular listed matter.
For junior counsel, arguing in Justice Kapadia's court is a strict no-no. You never know when your complete lack of knowledge of something or the other will be ruthlessly exposed to all and sundry.
In Justice Kabir's court, it doesn't matter if you're someone just out of law school or Nani Palkhivala himself re-incarnated - you will receive a patient and friendly hearing.
In their backgrounds as well, Kapadia and Kabir could not be more different. Kapadia's office-clerk-to-Chief-Justice-of-India story is well known.
While Justice Kabir didn't exactly enjoy a bed of roses, he grew up in a milieu about as far removed from Kapadia as geographically and culturally possible: a family of well known public intellectuals and politicians, prominent to this day in Bengal politics.
One could easily stereotype and see them as true-blue representatives of their respective cities and High Courts.
Justice Kapadia represents the efficient hustle and bustle of Bombay (as he prefers to call it) and the depth and knowledge in commercial law that practice in the Bombay High Court requires.
Justice Kabir perhaps represents a world fast disappearing — the slow, measured and gentlemanly ways of the Bengali bhadralok that reflects a fine, cultured and broad-minded intellect.
Where Justice Kapadia speaks with a strong Gujarati accent so characteristic of Bombay Parsis, Justice Kabir speaks with an enunciation that smooths over his Bengali roots and places him somewhere firmly in Victorian upper class London. But emphasising the differences between them is perhaps mistaking form for substance.
For all their superficial differences, Justices Kapadia and Kabir are more alike than they seem.
Despite the alleged shenanigans involving their progeny (such as this and this) their personal integrity has never been seriously questioned.
They are both very hard working judges held in deep respect by the Bar.
They both share the hidden burden of running the administrative behemoth that is the Supreme Court of India, and carrying out all the responsibilities that come with the top two jobs in in the judicial fraternity.
While Kapadia's tough core seems evident and obvious, Kabir's toughness is well hidden. Kabir doesn't fly into a rage for the small inconveniences of everyday life.
But when faced with a seemingly minor breach of propriety on the part of a lawyer, Kabir comes down harder than a megaton of bricks.
Many advocates, and even some senior advocates, make the mistake of believing that Kabir's gentlemanly nature makes him a pushover. When they push a little too hard, they suddenly find that they are at the receiving end of a thunderous tongue lashing in open court.
One instance perhaps best illustrates the folly of going by appearances alone.
A senior advocate, recently elevated and a well-known scion of a famous legal family, apparently mistook Kabir's liberal attitude with mentioning matters for mere indulgence.
When denied interim relief of early listing of his case (after a long-ish and patient hearing on Kabir's part), instead of walking away with a shrug, he hung around at the Bar trying to butt in between other mentioning matters.
He barely got a word in before Kabir flew into a rage. "No no no Mr.....! This is completely unacceptable behaviour on the part of senior counsel. We have heard you and dismissed your plea and now you attempt to abuse our indulgence. This is appalling!"
The courtroom was silenced in an instant.
Not only did he refuse early listing, he banned all advocates from mentioning matters seeking early listing, reminding them and a certain over-confident senior advocate exactly who's boss in the courtroom.
Kapadia's term as the Chief Justice of India will go down in the history books as the period when the apex court became the most powerful and respected institution in the nation.
