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Indian Supreme Court Judges

A Portrait1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

George H. Gadbois Jr.
George H. Gadbois Jr.*
Affiliation:
University of Kentucky
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Thirty-six men served on the Supreme Court of India from its inception in 1950 through 1967. Examination of their background attributes reveals that the prototypic judge was the product of a socially prestige-ful and economically advantaged family, was a Hindu (most often a Brahmin), was educated at one of the better Indian universities or in England, spent twenty years in private law practice before the High Court in his home state, refrained from participation in the nationalist movement before 1947 and in postindependence politics thereafter, was appointed to the High Court before which he practiced when he was forty-seven, spent ten years as a High Court judge by which time he was the Chief Justice or seniormost puisne judge of that Court, and then was promoted to the Supreme Court when he was fifty-seven years of age. There are, of course, exceptions to this prototype, but striking is the homogeneous character and similar socialization experiences shared by these men.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 3 , Issue 2-3: Special Issue Devoted to Lawyers in Developing Societies, with Particular Reference to India , February 1969 , pp. 317 - 336
Copyright
Copyright © 1969 by the Law and Society Association.

References

1. In a paper written earlier, Selection, Background Characteristics, and Voting Behavior of Indian Supreme Court Judges, 1950-1959, in Comparative Judicial Behavior (G. Schubert and D. J. Danelski eds. in press), I have dealt briefly with some of the background attributes of the twenty-three judges who served from 1950-59.

2. Constitution of India art. 124 (2) (1950, as modified up to May 1, 1965).

3. Gadbois, supra note 1.

4. Constitution of India, supra note 2, at art. 124 (3).

5. V. D. Mahajan, Chief Justice Gajendragadkar (1966); Chief Justice K. Subba Rao, Defender of Liberties (1966).

6. M. C. Mahajan, Looking Back (1963).

7. Times of India, The Times of India Directory and Year Book Including Who's Who (1945-1967).

8. India Supreme Court Reports (1950-67).

9. R. C. North, The Indian Council of Ministers: A Study of Origins, in Leadership and Political Institutions in India 110 (R. L. Park & L Tinker eds. 1959).

10. The Honorable Mr. Justice Kapur, 36 All India Rptr. J. 61 (1949).

11. Gadbois, supra note 1.

12. Constitution of India, supra note 2, at art. 124 (7).

13. 8 Government of India, Constituent Assembly Debates 239-44 (1949).

14. 1 Government of India, Fourteenth Report of the Law Commission of India: Reform of Judicial Administration 46 (1958).

15. Id. at 69-72.

16. Gadbois, supra note 1.