My years in the supreme court begins...

I TOOK OATH of office on the 1st of October 1948. Sir Hari Lal Kania was then the Chief Justice of the Federal Court. He had two more colleagues at that moment, Sir Fazl Ali and Mr Justice Patanjali Sastri. The Court was not at all overworked.

It enjoyed about four months’ vacation and help occasional sittings to decide cases that came before it. But soon after partition, the jurisdiction of the Privy Council was abolished and the Federal Court was conferred appellate jurisdiction to hear all appeals that would have previously gone to the Privy Council. The appeals pending before the Privy Council were also transferred to the Federal Court. It was in view of this enlarged jurisdiction of the Federal Court that two more Judges were appointed in September 1948, the late Mr. Justice Bijan Kumar Mukherjee and myself.

Thus from the 1st of October 1948, the Federal Court comprised five Judges.

This was a well-balanced team. All of us had very friendly relations with one another and in spite of differences of opinion in Court, our mutual regard and affection for one another were not in the slightest degree affected.

There is nothing much to record about the course of my life during the year 1949. I was appointed the vacation Judge and spent my summer partly in my Upper Dharamsala residence and partly in Simla. I had a severe attack of malaria and jaundice during the months of July and August. This was during the vacation. Even though I was the vacation Judge, this did not much interfere with the work of the Court.