Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Tuesday announced the formation of a three-member committee led by a former Supreme Court judge to review and recommend measures to safeguard the rights of states, alleging that the Centre was gradually snatching away their rights. “To protect the rightful entitlements of the States and to enhance the relationship between the Union and state governments, a high-level committee has been formed,” Stalin announced in the state Assembly.
Justice Kurian Joseph, a former judge of the Supreme Court, will head the committee. He served as an SC judge from March 8, 2013 to November 29, 2018 and delivered several landmark judgments. One year into his elevation to the top court, he was part of the Bench that ruled that all the coal block allocations since 1993 were illegal due to flaws in the allocation process. In the Shayara Bano case in 2017, he was part of the Bench that declared triple talaq unconstitutional. Three years later, he struck down the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Act and advocated for reforms in the Collegium system for judicial appointments. In one of his final judgments before retirement, in Chhannu Lal Verma v State of Chhattisgarh, Justice Kurian questioned the efficacy of capital punishment in achieving constitutional goals.
His career in the top court also saw him be a part of the unprecedented press conference on January 12, 2018, when a group of judges accused then Chief Justice Dipak Misra of allowing external influences to impact case allocation and judicial independence. This move sparked national debate on judicial transparency and institutional integrity. Justice Joseph defended the judges’ actions post-retirement, stating it was necessary to preserve the judiciary’s independence.
Before joining the Supreme Court, he was the Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court and before that he was a judge in the Kerala High Court. He was also designated senior advocate in the Kerala High Court at 42, one of Kerala’s youngest advocates to get the post.
