“To protect the rightful entitlements of the States and to enhance the relationship between the Union and state governments, a high-level committee has been formed,” Stalin announced in the state Assembly.
Justice Kurian Joseph, a former judge of the Supreme Court, will head the committee. He served as an SC judge from March 8, 2013 to November 29, 2018 and delivered several landmark judgments.
One year into his elevation to the top court, he was part of the Bench that ruled that all the coal block allocations since 1993 were illegal due to flaws in the allocation process. In the Shayara Bano case in 2017, he was part of the Bench that declared triple talaq unconstitutional. Three years later, he struck down the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Act and advocated for reforms in the Collegium system for judicial appointments.
In one of his final judgments before retirement, in Chhannu Lal Verma v State of Chhattisgarh, Justice Kurian questioned the efficacy of capital punishment in achieving constitutional goals.
His career in the top court also saw him be a part of the unprecedented press conference on January 12, 2018, when a group of judges accused then Chief Justice Dipak Misra of allowing external influences to impact case allocation and judicial independence. This move sparked national debate on judicial transparency and institutional integrity. Justice Joseph defended the judges’ actions post-retirement, stating it was necessary to preserve the judiciary’s independence.
Before joining the Supreme Court, he was the Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court and before that he was a judge in the Kerala High Court. He was also designated senior advocate in the Kerala High Court at 42, one of Kerala’s youngest advocates to get the post.
Ashok Vardhan Shetty
K Ashok Vardhan Shetty, a 1983-batch IAS officer of the Tamil Nadu cadre, built a reputation in the state as a clean, efficient, and principled administrator. Shetty was one of M K Stalin’s most-trusted bureaucrats during the latter’s tenure as Deputy Chief Minister between 2009 and 2011 and is credited with quietly engineering some of the DMK government’s most successful welfare schemes.
Many within the establishment expected him to rise to the top bureaucratic rung when Stalin became the CM, but he remained behind the scenes for years. His final years in service, before retiring in 2011, saw a legal tussle. Shetty submitted a voluntary retirement notice in September 2011, seeking to be relieved from service effective December 9, 2011.
However, by then, AIADMK leader Jayalalithaa had returned as CM. The government initially rejected his request, citing that he had only completed 28 years of service and required government acceptance to retire. The matter went to the Central Administrative Tribunal and then the Madras High Court, which ruled in its favour and directed the government to treat December 9, 2011, as his retirement date.
After retirement, Shetty took charge as Vice Chancellor of the Indian Maritime University (IMU) at a time when the central university based in Chennai was plagued by massive corruption, vacancies, internal squabbles, and credibility crises. He turned the tide and is widely credited for setting up institutional practices at the university.
M Naganathan
M Naganathan is a distinguished economist and a former vice-chairman of the Tamil Nadu State Planning Commission. He was a close confidant of DMK supremo M Karunanidhi and had access to the leader’s personal and professional life.
Their bond, forged over decades, was built on their daily 4 am walks at Anna Arivalayam, the DMK head office, a routine that continued for 25 years.
In an interview with The Indian Express, Naganathan once recounted a moment from January 1991 that captures their bond. During one of their morning walks, Karunanidhi, aware of the impending dismissal of his government amid perceived sympathy of the DMK towards the LTTE, is said to have told Naganathan: “You may not be walking with a Chief Minister tomorrow.” After the dismissal of the DMK government, Karunanidhi is said to have asked if Naganathan would still join him for their walks the next morning.
Apart from his long association with the DMK, Naganathan seems to be a good fit for this committee, having published extensively on federal transfers and state fiscal responsibility. Naganathan’s son Ezhilan Naganathan is a physician and DMK legislator from the Thousand Lights seat in Chennai.
Ashok Vardhan Shetty (left), M Naganathan (centre), and Justice (retired) Kurian Joseph (right). (Credit: Express Archive/Renuka Puri; YouTube; X/@Government_UoM) 
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