Different strokes

Their contribution range from declaring Indian society sick for still allowing bride burning,to legalising passive euthanasia,to appealing to the Pakistan authorities to release an Indian spy Gopal Das,quoting Hamlet to say that something is rotten in the Allahabad High Court,to having a weeping senior city judge apologise in open court for her official conduct.

Some special cases

INTER-CASTE MARRIAGES

On April 19,the bench held inter-caste marriages are in national interest and an unifying factor in a nation where the caste system is a curse.

ALLAHABAD HIGH COURT

Justice Katjus bench did not bat an eyelid when an entire high court appealed to the Supreme Court,objecting to certain observations made by the bench.

On November 26,2010,an SC bench passed an order observing that there is something rotten in the Allahabad High Court and the judiciary there suffers from the uncle judge syndrome.

Within a few days,the entire high court,hurt by the observations and treating it as a slight to their judicial propriety,complained to the Supreme Court and wanted it to expunge the remarks.

But Justice Katjus bench again took the matter on its own shoulders and delivered a second order,this time saying the remarks were prompted by Justice Katjus close attachment to the Allahabad HC.

ARMED FORCES GRIEVANCES REDRESSAL COMMISSION

On November 15,the bench ordered the government to set up a Commission within two months to look into the grievances of retired and serving members of the armed forces. They even chose Justice Kuldip Singh,a retired Supreme Court judge,as chairman and General VP Malik,retired army chief,as member.

This initiative came after it was found that Pushpa Vanti,an armymans widow whose husband,a veteran of three wars and decorated with 14 medals,was drawing Rs 80 per month as pension. In these days,a kilogram of arhar dal costs that amount, Justice Katju wrote.

APOLOGETIC JUDGE

Mercy,my lords. This was Delhis Additional District Judge Archana Sinhas plea in open court even as Justices Katju and Misra made her an example of the how the subordinate judiciary had slipped in official propriety over the years.

You are not fit to be a judge,you should resign immediately,Justice Katju had told the weeping judge,but later decided against suspending her,saying we were about to suspend you,but we have a heart.

ATTORNEY FOR THE DAMNED

The bench declared null and void any resolution so far passed by bar associations across the country which bans a lawyer from being an attorney for the damned.

Citing instances of lawyers defending the assassins of Mahatma Gandhi and Indira Gandhi to the ones who represented Dr Binayak Sen,the SC ruled that lawyers cannot refuse a brief. Every person,however,wicked,depraved,vile,perverted,execrable or repulsive he may be regarded by the society,has a right to be defended in a court of law and correspondingly it is the duty of the lawyer to defend him, the bench said in its judgment of December 6,2010.

ARUNA SHAUNBAG

One morning in early March,visuals of Aruna Shaunbag,a bed-ridden nurse,came alive on a large white screen in courtroom number 6 of Justices Katju and Misra. The bench was supposed to decide whether it would be legal to withdraw life support to Shaunbag,a sexual assault victim who had spent 37 years of her life in a Mumbai hospital bed. Choosing life for Shaunbag on the grounds that she was not in a permanent vegetative state,the bench,however,went ahead and legalised passive euthanasia.

It said the withdrawal of the life support mechanism of a patient who had no chance of recovery is not a positive act of killing but only an omission.