Former Chief Justice of India Ranajn Gogoi has been nominated to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament, by President Ram Nath Kovind.
Gogoi, the first person from northeast to reach the top of the judiciary and credited for bringing the curtains down on the decades old politically and religiously sensitive Ayodhya land dispute, retired as the CJI on November 17 last year.
Justice Gogoi''s tenure as judge and as CJI was marked by some controversies and allegations of sexual harassment, of which he was later cleared.
He etched his name in the annals of history when a five-judge bench headed by him on November 9 brought an end to the Ayodhya land dispute, which dates back to even before the Supreme Court came into existence in 1950.
Gogoi headed a bench which in a landmark verdict held that the office of the CJI is a public authority under the Right to Information Act, but "judicial independence has to be kept in mind" while disclosing information in "public interest".
On the same day, a 5-judge Constitution bench headed by him struck down in entirety the rules formulated by the Centre on appointment and service conditions for members of various tribunals, and referred to a larger bench the issue of examining the validity of the passage of the Finance Act 2017 as Money Bill.
