A.M. Ahmadi

Early life and career

Chief Justice Aziz Mushabber Ahmadi was born on 25 March 1932, in Surat, Gujarat. His father, Mushabber Imranali Ahmadi, had served as a judge in the Bombay Presidency and Gujarat judiciary services. The junior Ahmadi graduated with a Bachelor of Laws (BL) from the Sarvajanaik Law College, Surat in 1954.
In 1954, Justice Ahmadi enrolled as a district pleader in the Bombay High Court. Eventually, he began practice in the district, city civil and sessions courts in Ahmedabad. In 1960, he also served as a law officer in the Ahmedabad district court pleader’s office for a year. After the Gujarat High Court was established on 21 February 1962, Justice Ahmadi enrolled as an advocate at the High Court.

Career as a judge

After ten years at the bar, in 1964, he was appointed as a Judge in the City Civil and Sessions Court in Ahmedabad. Subsequently, he became the Secretary of the Legal Department of Gujarat in 1974. The role of a law secretary involves providing legal consultation to the government on several matters, different from the role of a judge who adjudicates matters. At that time, the tradition was that when a law secretary was sought to be recommended as a High Court judge, it was desired that they first abdicate their role as a law secretary, and return to the bench as a lower-court judge. Therefore, on 1 January 1976, shortly before his elevation to the High Court, Justice Ahmadi returned to his role as a civil and sessions judge.

Soon after, on 2 September 1976, he was appointed as an Additional Judge of the Gujarat High Court, and on 28 December 1977, his appointment was made permanent. During this time, he served as a member of several advisory boards such as the Advisory Board under Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974 and Gujarat’s State Third Pay Commission. He also served as the Chairman of the advisory board under the Prevention of Black Marketing and Maintenance of Supplies of Essential Commodities Act(year). Between 1986 and 1987, he was a member of the Ravi and Beas Water Disputes Tribunal.

Career as Supreme Court judge

In December 1988, Justice Ahmadi was elevated to the Supreme Court, becoming its ninth Muslim judge. While in the top court, Chief Justice Ahmadi served as the President of the Supreme Court Legal Aid Committee and as an Executive Chairman of the Committee for implementing Legal Aid schemes in India. On 25 October 1994, Justice Ahmadi became the 26th Chief Justice of India and continued to serve in that capacity until his retirement on 24 March 1997.

Post-retirement

In June 1998, Justice Ahmadi was appointed Chairman of an advisory panel to review provisions of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, and was Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission for the first five years. In 1999, he was appointed a member of the international commission to investigate human rights violations in East Timor, by the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights. He also served as a member of the International Commission of Jurists which assisted the judiciary in Liberia. Justice Ahmadi was also the s Chairman of a working group that deliberated on the status of Jammu and Kashmir and recommended methods to strengthen democracy and the rule of law. In 1996, he became an honorary bencher of Middle Temple. Later, in 1998, he became Chairman of the Union Carbide-funded Bhopal Memorial Trust Hospital. In 2003, and again in 2007, Justice Ahmadi was appointed Vice Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University.

Tenure at the Supreme Court in Numbers

Figure 1 shows that Justice Ahmadi authored 107 judgements and was a part of 540 benches.

Figure 2 shows that Justice Ahmadi’s judgements dealt mostly with Criminal Law (22%), followed by Constitutional Law (18%), service (15%), civil and labour and industrial (4.9% each) and evidence law matters (4.2%).

Notable Judgements

In S. R. Bommai v Union of India (1994), Justice Ahmadi was part of the  nine-judge bench which  held that the President’s power to impose presidential  rule under Article 355 was not absolute. They held that the President could only act under this provision if the proclamation of imposing the President’s rule was approved by both Houses of Parliament. 

In Indra Sawhney v Union of India (1992), Justice Ahmadi was part of another n  nine-judge bench which  upheld 27 percent reservations for Other Backward Classes, while holding that reservations for backward classes could not exceed 50 percent. Justice Ahmadi joined Justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy’s majority opinion which stated that Article 16(4), which allows the State to make reservations, was not an exception to Article 16(1) which guarantees all citizens equality of opportunity in all matters of employment; but was rather, a facet of the equality of opportunity. The bench also noted that there could be “extraordinary situations” where the 50 percent limit could be exceeded. This would apply while providing reservations for communities that were outside the “national mainstream.” 

In Keshub Mahindra v State of Madhya Pradesh (1996), a Division Bench of Justices Ahmadi and S.B. Majumdar ruled that Keshub Mahindra, the Chairman of Union Carbide India Limited, the subsidiary of Union Carbide Corporation which was responsible for the Bhopal gas disaster, could be tried for culpable homicide not amounting to murder under Section 304A of the Indian Penal Code, 1861. They noted that Mahindra was aware of the toxicity of the gas stored in the Carbide plant and that it was capable of killing many people upon escape. The bench also held that Section 304A did not require the presence of intent on the part of the accused.

In L. Chandra Kumar v Union of India (1997), a seven-judge bench led by Chief Justice Ahmadi held that the creation of tribunals under Articles 323A and 323B does not result in the exclusion of the jurisdiction of either the Supreme Court or the High Courts. This decision was based on the finding that the jurisdiction conferred upon the Supreme Court under Article 32 and the High Courts under Articles 226 and 227 formed part of the basic structure of the Constitution and were inviolable. In doing so, the Court struck down Clause 2(d) of Article 323A and Clause 3(d) of Article 323B and declared them unconstitutional.

In Ismail Faruqui v Union of India (1994), a five-judge bench of the Court upheld the acquisition of 67.7 acres of land in and around the Babri Masjid by the Union government through the enactment of the Acquisition of Certain Areas at Ayodhya Act, 1993 (‘Acquisition Act’).  The majority noted that “any step taken to arrest escalation of communal tension… can, by no stretch of argumentation, be termed non-secular… or against the concept of secularism — a creed of the Indian people embedded in the ethos.” 

Justices Ahmadi and Barucha, in their minority opinion, found the Acquisition Act as unconstitutional. They opined that the Act prevented the Muslim Community from pleading and establishing adverse possession, thereby restricting their right to redress. The judgement noted that such restriction was opposed to the idea of secularism and was therefore contrary to the basic structure doctrine.