Despite the critical role played by the Supreme Court of India, the lives of the judges have never been studied before. This seminal book presents biographical essays for each of the first ninety-three judges who served on the Court from 1950 through mid-1989. The essays in the book are based on interviews the author conducted with sixty-four of the sixty-eight judges who were alive in the 1980s, and on meetings and correspondence with family members or relatives, friends, and associates of the deceased judges. An attempt is made to account for why certain judges rather than others were chosen, the selection criteria employed and, to the extent possible in a secretive selection environment, to identify those who selected them. It concludes with a collective portrait of these judges, paying particular attention to changes in their background characteristics—fathers' occupation, education, pre-SCI career, caste, religion, state of birth, and region, over four decades. The essays also embrace their post-retirement activities.

This book contains biographical essays for each of the first ninety-three judges who served on the Supreme Court of India from 1950 through mid-1989. It is the first close look at these judges, and follows them from their birth to their deaths. An attempt is made to account for why they were chosen - the selection criteria employed and, to the extent possible in a furtive selection environment, to identify those who selected them. The latter represents the first comprehensive attempt to connect the dots between a potential nominee and his ultimate appointment. The book concludes with a collective portrait of them, paying particular attention to changes in their backgrounds - fathers' occupation, education, pre-SCI careers, caste, religion, region, over the four decades.

A leading expert on Indian judiciary, George Gadbois offers a compelling biography of the Supreme Court of India, a powerful institution. Written and researched when he was a graduate student in the 1960s, this book provides the first comprehensive account of the Court’s foundation and early years. Gadbois opens with Hari Singh Gour’s proposal in 1921 to establish an indigenous ultimate court of appeal. After analyzing events preceding the Federal Court’s creation under the Government of India Act, 1935, Gadbois explores the Court’s largely overlooked role and record. He goes on to discuss the Constituent Assembly’s debates about Indian judiciary and the Supreme Court’s powers and jurisdiction under the Constitution. He pays particular attention to the history and practice of judicial appointments in India. In the book’s later chapters, Gadbois assesses the functioning of the Supreme Court during its first decade and a half. He critically analyzes its first decisions on free speech, equality and reservations, preventive detention, and the right to property. The book is an institutional tour de force beginning with the Federal Court’s establishment in December 1937, through the Supreme Court’s inauguration in January 1950, and until the death of Jawaharlal Nehru in May 1964.

Dispute resolution reforms in China in the last decade or so have all centred around the strategy of establishing an integrated dispute resolution system as part of China’s modern governance system. This new integrated system, referred to as the ‘Mechanism for Pluralist Dispute Resolution (PDR)’ in China, serves as a dispute resolution system as well as a comprehensive social control mechanism. This book is the first academic attempt to explain the methods of civil and commercial dispute resolution in China from the perspective of PDR. It systematically and critically examines the development of China’s dispute resolution system, with each chapter analysing in detail the development and transformation of the different institutions, mechanisms and processes in their historical, politico-economic and comparative context.

Examines whether the Indian Supreme Court can produce progressive social change and improve the lives of the relatively disadvantaged.

Based on 114 intriguing interviews with nineteen former chief justices of India and more than sixty-six former judges of the Supreme Court of India, Abhinav Chandrachud opens a window to the life and times of the former judges of India's highest court of law and in the process offers a history that largely remained in oblivion for a long time.

The National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) judgment, on the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court, has been the subject of a deeply polarized debate in the public sphere and academia. This volume analyses the NJAC judgment, and provides a rich context to it, in terms of philosophical, comparative, and constitutional issues that underpin it. The work traces the history of judicial appointments in India; examines the constitutional principles behind selecting judges and their application in the NJAC judgment; and comparatively looks at the judicial appointments process in six select countries—United Kingdom, South Africa, Canada, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Nepal—enquiring into what makes a good judge and an effective appointments process. With wide-ranging essays by leading lawyers, political scientists, and academics from India and abroad, the volume is a deep dive into the constitutional concepts of judicial independence and separation of powers as discussed in the NJAC judgment.

This book presents biographies of the first ninety-three judges who served the Supreme Court of India from 1950 to 1989. The essays are based on author's interviews with the judges and their family and friends. They provide an engaging account of the first forty years of the Supreme Court of India.

"Gadbois visited India ... conducted over 116 interviews ..."--Front flap.

Enacted for historical reasons on 26 January 1950, the Constitution of India provided that the Supreme Court of India, situated in New Delhi, was to have one Chief Justice of India, and not more than seven judges. Today, the Court has 33 judges in addition to the Chief Justice of India. But who are these judges, and where did they come from? Its central thesis is that despite all established formal constitutional requirements, there are three informal criteria which are used for appointing judges to the Supreme Court: age, seniority, and diversity. The author examines debates surrounding the Indian judicial system since the institution of the federal court during the British Raj. This leads to a study of the political developments that resulted in the present 'collegium system' of appointing judges to the Supreme Court of India. Based on more than two dozen interviews personally conducted by the author with former judges of the Supreme Court of India, this book uniquely brings to the fore the unwritten criteria that have determined the selection of judges to the highest court of law in this country for over six decades.