A champion of civil liberties, author of landmark verdicts

Justice Iyer will be cremated in Kochi on Friday afternoon. People from all walks of life mourned the death of the crimson sun of justice.

Born in Palakkad in 1914, Iyer studied law in Madras, and began practice in Thalassery in the erstwhile Malabar region of Madras state. In 1948, he was imprisoned for a month on charges of giving legal aid to communists.

In 1952, he was elected to the Madras Legislative Assembly from Thalassery as a communist-backed independent. In 1957, he contested from the same constituency and won to become a minister in the first communist government in Kerala. Iyer handled the portfolios of home, law, prisons, social justice and irrigation. He left indelible imprints of a visionary administrator in every department he handled in a short stint of two years.

As law minister, Iyer was instrumental in the government taking several people-centric steps to ensure justice and free legal aid to the poor. He initiated jail reforms, incorporating the rights of prisoners. Decades before the concept of fast-track courts arrived, he started more courts for speedy justice.

After the communist government was dissolved in 1959, Iyer turned to the legal profession and starting practising in Kerala High Court. He fought the assembly election again in 1965 as an independent candidate, having refused the communist symbol, but lost.

In 1968, he became a judge of Kerala High Court. In 1971, he was made a member of the Central Law Commission. There, he drafted India’s first comprehensive free legal aid report, which went on to become the bedrock of the free legal aid movement in the country.

He was elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court in 1973. He spent seven years there, retiring in 1980. At the country’s apex court, Justice Iyer brought in an era of judicial activism and public interest litigation. He continued to be an inspiration for the legal fraternity, and his judgments served as guides for an entire generation of jurists.

A staunchly secular and socialist judge, Iyer’s landmark verdicts — often ingenious and imaginative — infused the hope of justice in the minds of common people. Through his judgments and interpretations of the Constitution, he helped redefine the country’s criminal justice system — directing the government, for example, to provide free legal aid to undertrials. Iyer put his faith in reforming rather than deterring.

Iyer humanized the concept of bail, making a lasting impact on the rights of the undertrials. He always advocated against the death penalty.

“The Constitution of India belongs to We, the people of India. This mean that even criminals condemned to death have to be governed by it,” Iyer wrote.

In 1977, he was invited by Amnesty International to Stockholm to deliver the inaugural address at an international conference on the abolition of the death penalty. His ruling on the death penalty in Rajendra Prasad Singh versus State of UP was followed by Lord Scarman in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in Westminster.

In 1974, Iyer delivered a dissenting verdict in interpreting the powers of the cabinet and the President. Among his epoch-making judgments, many of them far ahead of their time, he directed the municipality of Ratlam that “budgetary constraints did not absolve the municipality from performing its statutory obligation to provide sanitation facilities.”

He was a member of the SC bench that considered the first PIL. He converted a prisoner’s letter from Tihar jail into a writ petition, setting another benchmark in the fight for human rights.

Iyer will also be remembered for his verdict in the election case of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Iyer stayed the Allahabad High Court verdict that had overturned Indira’s election. The SC verdict allowed Indira to continue as prime minister. Later, when she declared the Emergency, Iyer was blamed.

Iyer was not known only to the bench and the bar, and his post-retirement life was dedicated to fighting for the rights of the common man. He raised a sane, impartial, erudite voice on every issue affecting society.

His house in Kochi was open to all. He championed the cause of the poor, the marginalised and the victimised sections of society. He was reckoned as a last resort for those who had been denied justice.

A man of remarkable scholarship, Iyer wrote as many as 105 books, mainly on social justice. His integrity, erudition and sympathy were legendary. He was the patron for several organisations in Kerala, giving them his stamp of credibility. He was the rare personality who was loved and revered by leaders of all political parties. In 2013, he praised Narendra Modi’s leadership and backed the BJP’s decision to pick him as its prime ministerial candidate for the Lok Sabha elections. Ahead of the elections, Justice Iyer wrote to Modi, wishing him success and a glorious future in the service of the nation.

On Thursday, the Prime Minister condoled Justice Iyer’s passing in a series of tweets, and tweeted a picture of himself with the jurist. “Fine lawyer, eminent jurist, incredible philosopher & above all a phenomenal human being. I bow to Justice Krishna Iyer,” Modi tweeted.

“My association with Justice Krishna Iyer was special. My mind goes back to our conversations & the insightful letters he would write to me. Whenever I would meet or talk to him, I would find him full of enthusiasm, always talking about the well-being of India. A remarkable man! May Justice Krishna Iyer’s soul attain eternal peace. My thoughts are with his family during this moment of immense sadness,” the Prime Minister said.

Even in the last lap of life, the jurist in Justice Iyer remained awake. A few years ago, as chairman of the law reforms committee, Iyer had made revolutionary recommendations to the state government.

He was conferred with scores of honours, including the Padma Vibhushan. Russia conferred on him the honour of ‘The Order of Friendship’, its highest civilian award for a foreigner.