From medical representative to Chief Justice of a High Court...a long way... of Hon'ble Mr.Justice.Mukhopadhaya

“I started my career as a medical representative, and sold Vicks on the streets of Patna,” recalls justice Sudhansu Jyoti Mukhopadhaya, who is on his way to mark another milestone as chief justice of the Gujarat high court in a few days.
Justice Mukhopadhaya has been number two in the Madras high court hierarchy for the past 39 months, after being transferred from the Jharkhand high court in August 2006.
It was at the suggestion of justice Mukhopadhaya’s father, an IAS officer, who started practice after his retirement, that this medical representative turned to law and became an advocate in 1979. He was appointed judge of the Patna high court in 1994, and later transferred to the newly formed Jharkhand high court.
In Bihar and Jharkhand, justice Mukhopadhaya is best known for a series of judgments in the fodder scam cases against Lalu Prasad and others.
His toughest days in Tamil Nadu were the four-odd months when, as acting chief justice of the court from December to March 2009, he had to tackle high-voltage lawyers’ agitation on the Sri Lankan Tamil issue. A string of demonstrations, disruptions in court, boycotts, attacks on Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy on February 17 and then the unprecedented violence involving advocates and police on the court campus on February 19, were all seen during his tenure as acting CJ.
A full bench headed by justice Mukhopadhaya ordered the suspension of two senior IPS officers for their role in the February 19 violence. “They were the persons who were at the helm of affairs, and under whose direct supervision the operation was carried out,” the bench said.
When the violence-marred October 2006 Chennai Corporation elections were under judicial scrutiny, a bench headed by him delivered a split verdict. In this order, justice Mukhopadhaya concluded that there was a constitutional bar on courts entertaining PILs in electoral matters.
The ecologically fragile Nilgiris district would remain indebted to him for three verdicts. One, for having imposed a blanket ban on all forms of mining and quarrying operations in the hill district; Two, for banning indiscriminate construction in the Nilgiris. Three, for having attempted to save the Elephant Corridor by banning new constructions and installation of solar/electrical fencing there.
His judgment on the legal status of a child born to a couple before their marriage was also considered an important one. A bench comprising justice Mukhopadhaya and justice V Dhanapalan said: “Though the marriage is said to be irregular, children born out of such marriage would be entitled to claim the benefits of their parent.”
Putting public safety and national security ahead of revenue generation, justice Mukhopadhaya’s bench also banned display of advertisements on private and public transport buses.
Justice Mukhopadhaya’s bench also targeted the offcampus/study centres run by private universities from other states as illegal, and said, “if such centres are allowed to continue, the future of gullible students will be jeopardised.”

The hon'ble judges of Madras High Court, disclosed their assests.

In a step towards greater transparency and accountability, the Madras High Court on Friday disclosed the assets and liabilities of all its 54 judges on its website, becoming the second HC in the country to do so.

The Kerala HC was the first to declare the assets of its judges on September 30, followed by the Supreme Court that placed details in the public domain on November 2. Though the High Courts of Delhi, Bombay and Punjab & Haryana have already announced that they too would make public their assets, they have not yet implemented the decision.

Starting from Chief Justice HL Gokhale, all the judges of the Madras HC have made exhaustive declarations about their properties, agricultural land holdings, investments and bank holdings.

See the link below to see the assets details:

http://www.hcmadras.tn.nic.in/assetsofjudges.htm

False information given under RTI Act - Fine of Rs.25,000/- is imposed.

The state information commission has imposed a fine of Rs 25,000 on a tahsildar in Vandavasi, Tiruvannamalai district, for providing incorrect information about the disbursement of old-age pension in his taluk.

As T Retna Pandian, an activist, had not got the information he sought under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, he filed an appeal before the state commission. State chief information commissioner S Ramakrishnan and information commissioner G Ramakrishnan, in their order, said, "The collector of Tiruvannamalai will levy the maximum penalty of Rs 25,000, which has become leviable on the Public Information Officer (special tahsildar), remit it in the government account and report the fact to the commission within four weeks of this order." The commission also ordered the collector to depute a senior officer to provide correct information to Pandian, general secretary of 5th Pillar India, a Chennai-based NGO.

Pandian had filed an RTI application in June 2008, seeking details about the beneficiaries of the old-age pension scheme following complaints of political interference in disbursement. "More than 20 people from Vandavasi said their old-age pensions had been stopped as they had not supported a particular candidate in the last local body election. I filed an application seeking details of disbursement of Central and state government sponsored old-age pension schemes. The tahsildar, in his reply on June 27, 2008, said 6,887 people had applied and, except in 1,000 cases where the postal department could not deliver the pension, the others were given pension regularly," Pandian said. The PIO asked Pandian to pay a fee of Rs 300 for a copy of the file. Pandian paid the money and filed an appeal seeking replies to more queries, but did not receive a reply.

Pandian approached the state commission on September 20, 2008. The commission, which held its first inquiry on February 25, 2009, ordered tahsildar M Murugesan to provide the replies. Murugesan said 7,827 people were getting pension and 1,401 applications were rejected. Since the figures contradicted those given by the PIO earlier, the petitioner once again moved the commission.

Tiruvannamalai district collector M Rajendran said, "We have decided to impose a fine on two special tahsildars and two section assistants, who provided wrong information to the commission. If there are complaints about discrepancies in disbursement of pension, we will investigate."

The assets of the Judges of SUPREME COURT of India declared.

The Hon'ble Judges of SUPREME COURT of India have declared their assets and the details are posted in the Supreme Court Website.

To verify click the following link:

http://www.supremecourtofindia.nic.in/assets.htm

The reckless mining and quarrying activities in the Nilgiris -HC lamented.

The Madras High Court has directed the state government to submit the list of 35 violators and officials, who were identified by the CB-CID as being responsible for the reckless mining and quarrying activities in the Nilgiris.

The list, along with the action, if any, taken against them shall be furnished before the court on Wednesday, ruled a division bench comprising justice SJ Mukhopadhaya and justice M Duraiswamy. The bench was passing orders on a public interest writ petition filed by advocate Elephant G Rajendran, managing trustee of In Defence of Environment and Animals (IDEA).

The petition, supported by a number of photographs, revealed a largescale plunder of natural resources in the Western Ghats. It named 14 locations where quarrying was going on unchecked for several years. He claimed that several hills were blasted with dynamites and over 5,000 truckloads of blue metal had been carted away from just four sites alone. This, inspite of the fact that a Supreme Court order in 2003 specifically banned excavation and quarrying activities in the hills.

In April 2008, a division bench of the court banned all forms of quarrying in the Nilgiris and directed the police and transport authorities to curb use of dynamite and impound heavy vehicles involved in the illegal mining operation.

In October 2008, the court lamented that it was "pathetic that so many disturbances have been caused to natural resources." It also asked the CB-CID to probe the issue.

Passing further orders on the matter on November 5, the present division bench headed by justice Mukhopadhaya said the state government should come out with a scheme putting the onus of protecting the natural resources on the officers concerned. Elaborating, it said, "for example, if illegal mining is done in a particular area, tahsildar, officer-in-charge of the jurisdictional police station and the officer who has jurisdiction over the mining area may be held responsible for not taking any action against illegal miners. They may be proceeded departmentally and if necessary, may be suspended."

It then asked the advocate-general PS Raman to furnish the list of 35 officials and others identified by the additional director-general of police, CB-CID, who probed the issue.