Former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi is nominated to the Rajya Sabha by President

A notification to this effect was issued by the Union home ministry

• Former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi has been nominated as a member of the Rajya Sabha by President Ram Nath Kovind
• He retired from the Supreme Court barely four months ago and a notification to this effect was issued by the Union home ministry
• This is the first time a government has used its power to nominate individuals for the Rajya Sabha to offer a post-retirement sinecure to a former Chief Justice of India

Highlights of the Nomination

• In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-clause (a) of clause (1) article 80 of the Constitution of India, read with clause (3) of that article, the President is pleased to nominate Shri Ranjan Gogoi to the Council of States to fill the vacancy caused due to the retirement of one of the nominated member
• This is the first time that a government has nominated a CJI to the upper house and will raise questions about the constitutional separation of powers between the executive and the judiciary, especially since Gogoi headed benches in key cases that the same government which has nominated him had important political stakes in
• These included the Rafale matter, the dismissal of Central Bureau of Investigation director Alok Verma, the Ayodhya matter, and several other key cases
• Justice Gogoi will not be the first CJI to sit in the Rajya Sabha. The 21st CJI, Rangnath Mishra, served as an MP in the Upper House from 1998 to 2004
• However, Justice Mishra was a Congress MP, not a member of eminence appointed by the President

Who is “Ranjan Gogoi”?

• He is an Indian jurist who served as the 46th Chief Justice of India for 13 months between 2018 and 2019
• He is known for his majority opinion in the Ayodhya Case which ruled that the construction of the Ram Temple over historically disputed land in Ayodhya was lawful
• He became chief justice of Panjab on 12 February 2011. On 23 April 2012, he was elevated as a Judge of the Supreme Court
• On 12 January 2018, Ranjan Gogoi and three other Supreme Court judges – Jasti Chelameswar, Madan Lokur and Kurian Joseph – became the first to hold a press conference
• They alleged problems plaguing the court, in terms of failure in the justice delivery system and allocation of cases and told journalists that the press conference was prompted by the issue of allocating to Justice Arun Mishra the case of the death of special Central Bureau of Investigation, Judge B.H.Loya

Article – 80 and class 3

• Under Clause (3) of article 80, the President has powers to nominate persons with special knowledge to the council of states
• Such person shall have special knowledge in science, art, literature and social service
• Apart from 12 members nominated by the president, the council of states also consists of representative from the states
• These representatives should not exceed more than 280 in numbers from the states and union territories
• The representatives are elected by the members of legislative assembly in the state
• The representatives of the Union Territories in the council of States shall be chosen in such manner as Parliament may by law prescribe

Pic courtesy : Scroll.in