Pardiwala, 6th apex court judge from Parsi community

With legal luminaries, the community has made its presence felt in the SC

Justice Jamshed Burjor Pardiwala, to be sworn in as Supreme Court judge along with Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia on Monday, will be the sixth apex court judge from the Parsi community.

In line to be the third Chief Justice of India from the community, Justice Pardiwala would be the top judge for a little over two years and lead the court into the next decade.

The first member of the Parsi community to serve on the Supreme Court was Justice Dinshah Pirosha Madon in the early 1980s. The two Chief Justices of India, Justices Sam Piroj Bharucha and Justice Sarosh Homi Kapadia, were appointed top judges almost 10 years apart. Justice Bharucha was appointed CJI in 2001 and Justice Kapadia in 2010.

Then there were the two 'Narimans'. Justice Sam Nariman Variava, once a part-time professor of law at Sydenham College in Bombay, was Supreme Court judge between 2000 and 2005. A decade later, the court witnessed in Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman a brilliant spell and a flurry of judgments in fields of law as varied as death penalty review, free speech and insolvency laws, only to name a few.

George H. Gadbois Jr.'s 'Judges of the Supreme Court of India 1950-1989' mentioned that Justice Madon was not the first Parsi to be invited to serve on the apex court Bench. "H.M. Seervai and N.A. Palkhivala, in the late 1950s, declined invitations, as did Fali Nariman in the late 1970s".

But Justice Madon, who had aspired to be a journalist and writer but took to law as his father thought the former jobs were "low-paying positions", accepted the court's invitation to the Bench in 1983 and served briefly as judge in the Supreme Court till his retirement in 1986.

Justice Madon faced odds with equanimity both on and off the Bench. When World War II spoilt his plans to earn his barrister credentials from London, he did his law from Government Law College, Bombay. Later as a Bombay High Court judge, he championed the right to free speech against censorship during the Emergency. Post his retirement, Justice Madon wrote a cutting resignation letter to the V.P. Singh government when his inquiry commission into the Meham constituency election violence was not provided office, staff or budget.