Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju retires

Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju retired on Monday 19th September 2011 after a career that will be remembered not only for his bold judgments, which some found controversial, but also for his frank, strong views on a wide range of subjects.

“The corrupt should be hanged from the lamp post as that is the only way of getting rid of corruption in the country,” he once said, long before Anna Hazare demanded a death sentence for the corrupt. Other issues he had expressed views on included Mirza Ghalib the poet, Indo-Pak prisoners, honour killings, extra-judicial killings and corruption in the judiciary. At the farewell today, Chief Justice of India S H Kapadia said Justice Katju has lost neither the courage to speak the truth nor his concern for the common man.

When he was Chief Justice of the Madras High Court, Markandey Katju, while ruling on a constitutional question of the relationship between the judiciary, the legislature and the executive, had emphasised judicial restraint and the impropriety of the judiciary trying to infiltrate into the other two domains.