Govt nominates ex-CJI Ranjan Gogoi to Rajya Sabha

New Delhi: The government on Monday nominated former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi to Rajya Sabha.

A notification to this effect was issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs.

"In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-clause (a) of clause (1) of 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 members," the notification said.

The vacancy was created due to retirement of KTS Tulsi.

Gogoi headed the five-judge bench which delivered a landmark judgement in 70-year-old Ayodhya title dispute in November 2019. The apex court had ordered the construction of a Ram temple at the disputed site by setting up a trust, while ordering five acres be given to Muslims in Ayodhya to construct a mosque.

Justice Ranjan Gogoi was sworn in as the 46th Chief Justice of India in October 2018. He was appointed for a 13-month stint, and he took over from Justice Dipak Mishra.

A bench headed by Gogoi also ruled that Chief Justice Office falls under RTI but placed some riders. And, in another judgement, a bench headed by him in a majority judgement of 3:2 referred the Sabarimala temple judgement of 2018 to a larger bench. Justice Gogoi also pursued the Assam NRC, and tasked the authorities concerned to publish the final list before August 31, 2019.

In another politically sensitive judgment, a three-judge bench, headed by Gogoi, and comprising Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph, on 14 November dismissed a review petition challenging the Rafale deal case. A bench headed by Gogoi also censured Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for wrongfully attributing the "Chowkidar chor hai" remark against Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the top court.

On his last working day Gogoi had said the judicial system is facing new challenges, which emerge from within and outside of court complexes and judicial processes.

The Chief Justice, who demitted office on November 17, did not directly refer to the sexual harassment allegations against him by a court staffer, but instead said: "As an institution, we have tried to deliver much more than what is reasonably possible, yet, today each of us is required to deal with new challenges, which unfortunately arise from within and outside of our court complexes and our judicial processes."