Just over a month after retiring from the Supreme Court, Justice (Retd) Abdul Nazeer has been appointed as the governor of Andhra Pradesh.
Justice Nazeer was part of the Bench in several historic judgments of the court in recent history. He was the senior most judge of the Constitution Bench, which in January 2023, upheld the validity of the Union’s 2016 demonetisation scheme and held that additional restrictions, not contemplated in the Constitution, cannot be imposed on the freedom of speech of ministers and legislators.
Justice Nazeer was initially appointed as a judge of the Karnataka High Court in 2003. In 2017, he was elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court, superseding judges who were senior to him.
Appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court in February 2017, Justice Nazeer was part of the Constitution Benches that delivered two key judgments the same year. In August 2017, Nazeer dissented in the judgment which held that the practice of talaq-e-biddat or instantaneous triple talaq is unconstitutional.
He was also a part of the nine judge In the August 2017 privacy verdict, the nine judges of a Constitution Bench that unanimously declared right to privacy as a fundamental right.
In 2019, Justice Nazeer was a part of a five-judge bench that heard the Ayodhya case and overturned the 2010 Allahabad High Court judgment that divided the title to the Babri Masjid/ Ram Janmabhoomi site.
In 2020, Justice Nazeer was on the Constitution Bench that struck down Maharashtra’s Socially and Educationally Backward Classes Act, 2018, known was the ‘Maratha Reservation Case’, the act granted reservations to the Maratha community. The Bench held that the act violated the 50 percent limit on reservations.
In October 2022, Justice Nazeer along with Justice DY Chandrachud objected to then CJI Lalit’s method of discussing collegium recommendations by circulating letters. This led to just one recommendation for appointment to the SC being sent to the government during Justice Lalit’s tenure.
He retired from the Supreme Court on January 4, 2023, in an even felicitating him, speaking of his presence in the Ayodhya Bench, Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president Vikas Singh said: “He agreed with the majority view and that shows his attitude that the nation comes first and an individual like him comes last.”
Born on January 5, 1958, at Beluvai in Karnataka Dakshina Kannada district, Justice Nazeer enrolled as an advocate on February 18, 1983, after completing his LLB degree from the SDM Law College, Mengaluru. He practiced before the Karnataka High Court and was appointed as its Additional Judge on May 12, 2003. He became a permanent judge on September 24, 2004 and was elevated to the Supreme Court on February 17, 2017.
The incumbent governor of Andhra Pradesh Biswa Bhusan Harichandan has been transferred as the Governor of Chhattisgarh.
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