Photo Courtesy: India Today Group
Guwahati: Supreme Court Justice Ujjal Bhuyan is stirring debate with a series of candid public remarks. He addresses contentious issues like voting rights, judicial appointments, and the limits of state power. Elevating to the Supreme Court on July 14, 2023, the judge maintains an active presence at legal forums. His commentary often pushes against the boundaries of traditional judicial silence.
Justice Bhuyan slammed the disenfranchisement of citizens at the October 4 NALSAR-Justice BR Sawhney Memorial Moot Court. He called the process arbitrary. He stated, "The process of disenfranchising millions and millions of Indian citizens, making them second-class citizens in their own country, in the sense of being citizens without voting rights, such a process is intrinsically arbitrary. No amount of whataboutery can justify it."
The judge champions dissent. He warned students at the University of Science and Technology Meghalaya on October 31 that a society that fears questions becomes vulnerable to authoritarianism. He further criticized the Supreme Court for its male-dominated Bench. He noted that female representation fails to reflect the nation's demographics. Earlier, he shared a personal story regarding a friend of his daughter who faced housing discrimination in Delhi because of her Muslim faith.
The Collegium system draws his ire. On January 24 at ILS Law College in Pune, he blasted the lack of transparency in judicial transfers. He pointed to the government's influence as a striking intrusion. He also critiqued the practice of withholding reasons for appointments, claiming it harms outstanding judges. Regarding criminal law, he cited the case of 14 Muslim youths jailed for three months in Varanasi. Their alleged crime was eating chicken biryani on a boat.
Born in Guwahati on August 2, 1964, Bhuyan comes from a legal family. His father, Suchendra Nath Bhuyan, served as Advocate General of Assam. The justice studied at Don Bosco High School and Cotton College before earning law degrees from Government Law College, Guwahati, and Gauhati University. He served on the Gauhati, Bombay, and Telangana High Courts before joining the Supreme Court. He will retire on August 1, 2029, and will not serve as Chief Justice of India. On Thursday, he ruled that the 24-hour window to produce a suspect before a magistrate starts at the moment of detention, not when the formal arrest record is created.
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