Rohinton Fali Nariman
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Rohinton Fali Nariman (born 13 August 1956) is a former judge of the
Supreme Court of India The Supreme Court of India is the supreme judiciary of India, judicial authority and the supreme court, highest court of the Republic of India. It is the final Appellate court, court of appeal for all civil and criminal cases in India. It also ...
. Before being elevated as a judge, he practised as a senior counsel at the Supreme Court. He was appointed the
Solicitor General of India The Solicitor General of India (SGI) is subordinate to the Attorney General for India. The SGI is the second-highest law officer of the country, assists the Attorney General, and is assisted by Additional Solicitors General of India (Addl. SG ...
on 23 July 2011.http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2287939.ece , Rohinton Nariman appointed Solicitor-General He also served as a member of the
Bar Council of India Bar Council of India (BCI) is a statutory body established under section 4 of the Advocates Act 1961 that regulates the legal practice and legal education in India. Its members are elected from amongst the lawyers in India and represent the In ...
. He was designated as a Senior Counsel by Chief Justice
Manepalli Narayana Rao Venkatachaliah Manepalli Narayanarao Venkatachaliah (born 25 October 1929) was the 25th Chief Justice of India, serving from 1993 to 1994. He currently serves as the Chancellor of Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning (Deemed University) and on the A ...
in 1993 at the early age of 37.


Early life and education

Nariman is the son of
Fali Sam Nariman Fali Sam Nariman (10 January 1929 – 21 February 2024) was an Indian jurist. He was a senior advocate to the Supreme Court of India from 1971 and was the President of the Bar Association of India from 1991 to 2010. Nariman was an international ...
, a distinguished Indian jurist. He received his early education in
Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...
, at the
Cathedral and John Connon School The Cathedral and John Connon School is a co-educational private school founded in 1860 and located in Fort, Mumbai, Maharashtra.Shri Ram College of Commerce Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) is an Indian higher education institution in the fields of commerce, economics and business management. A constituent college of the University of Delhi, it was founded in 1926 by seven leading businessmen na ...
. He completed his
Bachelor of Laws A Bachelor of Laws (; LLB) is an undergraduate law degree offered in most common law countries as the primary law degree and serves as the first professional qualification for legal practitioners. This degree requires the study of core legal subje ...
from Campus Law Centre of the Faculty of Law, University of Delhi, where he ranked 2nd in the batch. He then went to
Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, Harvard Law School is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United ...
for his
Master of Laws A Master of Laws (M.L. or LL.M.; Latin: ' or ') is a postgraduate academic degree, pursued by those either holding an undergraduate academic law degree, a professional law degree, or an undergraduate degree in another subject. In many jurisdi ...
degree in 1980–81 where he was taught by stalwarts like
Laurence Tribe Laurence Henry Tribe (born October 10, 1941) is an American legal scholar known for his studies of United States constitutional law. Tribe was a professor at Harvard Law School from 1968 until his retirement in 2020. He currently holds the posit ...
and
Roberto Mangabeira Unger Roberto Mangabeira Unger (; ; born 24 March 1947) is a Brazilian philosopher and politician. His work is in the tradition of Western philosophy and classical social theory, and is developed across fields in legal theory, philosophy and religion, ...
.


Career

Nariman joined the Bar as an advocate in 1979.Legal Era – Rohinton Nariman To Be New Solicitor General
Last Retrieved on 4 February 2013.
The Times of India ''The Times of India'' (''TOI'') is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by the Times Group. It is the List of newspapers in India by circulation, third-largest newspaper in India by circulation an ...
placed him among top ten lawyers of his time.India's top 10 lawyers – Times of India
Last retrieved on 4 February 2013.
After his year at Harvard, he practised maritime law in New York at Haight, Gardner, Poor & Havens for a year. He was designated as a senior advocate at the
Supreme Court of India The Supreme Court of India is the supreme judiciary of India, judicial authority and the supreme court, highest court of the Republic of India. It is the final Appellate court, court of appeal for all civil and criminal cases in India. It also ...
from 15 December 1993 at the young age of 37. While appointing him Chief Justice
Manepalli Narayana Rao Venkatachaliah Manepalli Narayanarao Venkatachaliah (born 25 October 1929) was the 25th Chief Justice of India, serving from 1993 to 1994. He currently serves as the Chancellor of Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning (Deemed University) and on the A ...
amended the rules as Nariman was of 37 years old and the minimum age for being made a senior in the Supreme Court was 45. He has been practising law for the last 30 years and has more than 500 reported Supreme Court judgments to his credit. He is an expert in Comparative Constitutional Law and Civil Law. He has argued numerous cases, including the constitutional bench judgments of P.A. Inamdar v. State of Maharashtra and State of Punjab v. Devans Modern Breweries Ltd. In a case he argued, Enercon (India) Ltd. v. Enercon GMBH, Civil Appeal No. 2086 of 2014, Nariman has clarified the arbitration law on the seat/venue dichotomy. Khoday Distilleries Ltd. v. Scotch Whisky Assn., (2008) 10 SCC 723 is a landmark case in trademark law wherein the arguments of Nariman that the class of buyer may be relevant to the determination of a passing off action and it is not always the test of the prudent man which would apply was accepted. He has argued the cases for theatre artist
Vijay Tendulkar Vijay Dhondopant Tendulkar (6 January 1928 – 19 May 2008) was an Indian playwright, movie and television writer, literary essayist, political journalist, and social commentator primarily in Marathi. His Marathi plays established him as a writ ...
and the controversy-marred play Sakharam Binder. He claims that these two cases have been the turning points of his life. He has handled the high-profile case of gas sharing between the
Reliance Industries Limited Reliance Industries Limited is an Indian multinational conglomerate headquartered in Mumbai. Its businesses include energy, petrochemicals, natural gas, retail, entertainment, telecommunications, mass media, and textiles. Reliance is the l ...
(led by
Mukesh Ambani Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani (born 19 April 1957) is an Indian billionaire and businessman who is the chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries. As of May 2025, he is the richest person in Asia and The World's Billionaires, 13th richest ...
) and
Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group Reliance Group (stylized as ReLIΛNCe) is an Indian conglomerate, headquartered in Mumbai, India. The company, which was formed after Dhirubhai Ambani's business was divided up, is headed by his younger son Anil Ambani. Reliance Group has f ...
(which is led by
Anil Ambani Anil Dhirubhai Ambani (born 4 June 1959) is an Indian billionaire, businessman, chairman, and managing director of Reliance Group (a.k.a. Reliance ADA Group). The Reliance Group was created in July 2006 following a demerger from Reliance Indus ...
). He has set up the Supreme Court Lawyers Welfare Trust which works for the welfare of lawyers and encourages young talent.


Solicitor General

Nariman was of 55 years old when he was appointed the
Solicitor General of India The Solicitor General of India (SGI) is subordinate to the Attorney General for India. The SGI is the second-highest law officer of the country, assists the Attorney General, and is assisted by Additional Solicitors General of India (Addl. SG ...
.Rohinton Nariman To Be Appointed Solicitor General of India
.


Resignation

After being at the post of Solicitor General of India for eighteen months, Nariman resigned on 4 February 2013. The reason for this is not known though it was said that he shared a poor rapport with the then-
Law Minister A minister is a politician who heads a ministry, making and implementing decisions on policies in conjunction with the other ministers. In some jurisdictions the head of government is also a minister and is designated the 'prime minister', 'pre ...
Ashwani Kumar.


Supreme Court of India

Nariman was elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court on 7 July 2014. He was the fifth Supreme Court judge to be elevated directly from the Bar. He reached the retirement age of 65 on 12 August 2021.


Publications

In November 2016, Nariman's book on the
Zoroastrian Zoroastrianism ( ), also called Mazdayasnā () or Beh-dīn (), is an Iranian religion centred on the Avesta and the teachings of Zarathushtra Spitama, who is more commonly referred to by the Greek translation, Zoroaster ( ). Among the wo ...
religion, ''The Inner Fire'', was released. The book is an analysis of the
Gathas The Gathas () are 17 hymns in the Avestan language from the Zoroastrian oral tradition of the Avesta. The oldest surviving text fragment dates from 1323 CE, but they are believed by scholars to have been composed before 1000 BCE and passed dow ...
.


Notable judgements


Freedom of speech

Nariman and
Jasti Chelameswar Jasti Chelameswar (born 23 June 1953) is a former judge of the Supreme Court of India. He retired on 22 June 2018 as the second most senior supreme court judge. He previously served as the chief justice of the Kerala High Court from 2010 to 201 ...
formed the two judge bench of the Supreme Court of India which struck down a controversial law which gave Indian police the power to arrest anyone accused of posting emails or other electronic messages which "causes annoyance or inconvenience". The judges held Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, which made such offenses punishable up to three years imprisonment, to be unconstitutional. The judgement was authored by Nariman. According to Nariman and Chelameswar, several terms in the law they were striking down were "open-ended, undefined and vague" which made them nebulous in nature. According to the judges: "What may be offensive to one may not be offensive to another. What may cause annoyance or inconvenience to one may not cause annoyance or inconvenience to another." In their judgement, the judges clarified that a distinction needs to be made between discussion, advocacy, and incitement. Any discussion, or advocacy of even an unpopular cause cannot be restricted, and it is only when such discussion or advocacy reaches the level of incitement whereby it causes public disorder or affects the security of the state can it be curbed. The judgement has been welcomed for defending the Indian Constitution's ideals of tolerance and the constitutional provisions of free speech. It has been pointed out that the controversial law struck down by Nariman and Chelameswar had gained notoriety after many people in India started getting arrested for seemingly innocuous reasons on the ground that they had violated the now scrapped law.


Triple Talaq

In a landmark judgement, a five-judge bench struck down instantaneous
triple talaq Divorce according to Islamic law can occur in a variety of forms, some initiated by a husband and some by a wife. The main categories of Islamic customary law are ''talaq'' ( repudiation), ''khulʿ'' (mutual divorce) and ''faskh'' (dissolution o ...
by 3–2 majority and termed it void, illegal and unconstitutional. While Justice Kurian Joseph, Justice Nariman and Justice U. U. Lalit struck down the practice; Chief Justice JS Khehar and Justice S. Abdul Nazeer asked parliament to make a law in this regard. Justice Nariman's judgement was against the practice of Triple Talaq where he stated "Triple Talaq is a disapproved form of divorce. Even the Hanafi law says triple talaq is sinful. 1937 Act recognizes triple talaq and therefore does not violate Article 13. It is not possible for the court to fold his hands when petitioners come to court. Practice of triple talaq is bad and can be tested as legislation."


Sabarimala

Justice Nariman, along with Justice DY Chandrachud, delivered a dissent in Kantaru Rajeevaru v. Indian Young Lawyers Association. He held that the decision of five judges in the Sabarimala case which held that women of the ages of ten and fifty shall not be denied entry to the Sabarimala temple is not a fit case for the exercise of review jurisdiction as the judgment does not suffer from an error apparent on the face of record. The dissent observed that the executive is under a constitutional obligation to implement the decisions of the Supreme Court even if they were not parties before them. Justice Nariman observed:
Bona fide criticism of a judgment, albeit of the highest court of the land, is certainly permissible, but thwarting, or encouraging persons to thwart, the directions or orders of the highest court cannot be countenanced in our Constitutional scheme of things.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nariman, Rohinton 1956 births Living people 20th-century Indian judges 21st-century Indian judges Faculty of Law, University of Delhi alumni Harvard Law School alumni Indian legal scholars Indian Senior Counsel Justices of the Supreme Court of India Parsi people from Mumbai Scholars from Mumbai Shri Ram College of Commerce alumni Solicitors general of India Supreme Court of India lawyers