Baharul Islam

For other uses, see Baharul Islam (disambiguation).

Baharul Islam (1 March 1918 – 5 February 1993) was an Indian politician and judge of the Supreme Court of India.^[3][4] He was elected to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament of India, as a member of the Indian National Congress. In 1972, he resigned from the Rajya Sabha to become a judge in the Gauhati High Court, where he eventually retired as Chief Justice. He was later recalled and appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court, where he delivered a judgment absolving the then-Chief Minister of Bihar, Jagannath Mishra, in the urban cooperative bank scandal.^[5] He subsequently resigned from the Supreme Court to contest elections as a Congress party candidate and was re-elected to the Rajya Sabha.^[6][7][8][2]

Islam in Hungary as a Member of Parliament, September 1985.

Baharul Islam
Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha
In office 15 June 1983 – 14 June 1989 [1]
In office 3 April 1962 – 20 January 1972
Judge of the Supreme Court of India
In office 4 December 1980 – 12 January 1983
Personal details
Born	(1918-03-01)1 March 1918
Died	5 February 1993(1993-02-05) (aged 74)
Political party	Indian National Congress[2]
Alma mater	Faculty of Law, Aligarh Muslim University

Islam in Beijing, China, attending the Forum for Safeguarding World Peace (June 1985).

Early life

He was born in the village of Udiana in Kamrup district, Assam. Islam attended Gurdon High School in Nalbari, followed by Cotton University in Guwahati and Aligarh Muslim University.^{[citation needed]}

Career

Islam enrolled as an advocate of the Assam High Court in 1951 and of the Supreme Court in 1958. He joined the Indian National Congress party in 1956.^[2] In 1962 and again in 1968, he was elected to the Rajya Sabha, resigning in 1972 to be appointed a judge of the then Assam and Nagaland High Court (now Gauhati High Court) on 20 January 1972. Islam was appointed acting chief justice of the Gauhati High Court on 11 March 1979 and became chief justice on 7 July 1979. He retired from this role on 1 March 1980.

On 4 December 1980, Islam was appointed to the Supreme Court of India in an unprecedented move, as retired judges were not typically reappointed.^{[citation needed]} He resigned from the Supreme Court on 12 January 1983 to contest from Barpeta, Assam, for the Lok Sabha as a Congress party candidate.^[7][9] However, as elections in Assam were postponed in the 1984 Indian general election, he was re-elected to the Rajya Sabha.^[6][3]

He was also a member of the Gauhati High Court Bar Association.^[10]

Committees

In 1987, the Islam Committee was appointed to draft legislation focused on the rights, equal opportunities, and full participation of disabled persons.^[11]

References

1. "Rajya Sabsha Members Biographical Sketches 1952–2003" (PDF). Rajya Sabha. Retrieved 17 March 2020.
2. "Removal motion against CJI a remarkable piece of skullduggery". Dhananjay Mahapatra. The Times of India. 23 April 2018. Retrieved 17 March 2020.
3. "Former Judges: Baharul Islam". Supreme Court of India. Archived from the original on 17 October 2014. Retrieved 20 September 2015.
4. Kalbag, Chaitanya (31 January 1983). "Ends of Justice". India Today. Archived from the original on 22 September 2015.
5. "Collegium 2.0". Sudhansu Ranjan. Asian Age. 3 November 2015. Retrieved 17 March 2020.
6. "Justice Baharul Islam tenders his resignation from SC Bench to President Zail Singh". Chaitanya Kalbag. India Today. 31 July 1983. Retrieved 17 March 2020.
7. M.V. Pylee (1998). Emerging Trends of Indian Polity. Regency Publications. pp. 50–. ISBN 978-81-86030-75-2.
8. Abhinav Chandrachud (29 May 2018). Supreme Whispers: Conversations with Judges of the Supreme Court of India 1980-89. Penguin Random House India Private Limited. pp. 183–. ISBN 978-93-5305-021-4.
9. James Manor (1994). Nehru to the Nineties: The Changing Office of Prime Minister in India. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. pp. 112–. ISBN 978-1-85065-180-2. Retrieved 17 March 2020.
10. "About Us: Past Presidents of the Association". Gauhati High Court Bar Association. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 20 September 2015.
11. Bhambhani, Meenu (2005). "Disability Policy: India". In Albrecht, Gary L. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Disability, volume 1. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications. pp. 465–467, page 467. ISBN 978-1-4522-6520-9.