New Delhi, Feb 21 (PTI) Former vice president Hamid Ansari Wednesday expressed condolences on the demise of noted jurist Fali S Nariman and said he cherished the diversity of Indian society and will be missed by all.
Fali S Nariman, a doyen of Indian judiciary who was part of several landmark legal proceedings that helped shape modern India, including the Kesavanand Bharati case in which the Supreme Court laid down the basic structure doctrine, died on Wednesday. He was 95. “In the passing away of Fali S Nariman, India has lost an iconic personality who will be missed by all who knew him. May his soul rest in peace,” the former vice president said in a statement.
Nariman cherished the diversity of our society, he said. “He had observed in one of his writings that in some respects it was like a dinosaur with ‘a body as long as this room and a brain the size of a pin’: We in India ‘must not let the dinosaur destroy our habitat’.” Nariman is survived by son and former Supreme Court judge Rohinton Nariman, daughter Anaheeta and daughter-in-law Sanaya. His wife Bapsi Nariman had died in 2020.
He was suffering from various ailments including heart disease.
Former union Law minister Ashwani Kumar said the country has lost a legal luminary “who kept the flame of liberty and freedom alive in testing times by his fearless advocacy of the nation’s liberal and libertarian conscience”.
Kumar said that apart from his powerful advocacy and defence of fundamental rights on several occasions, in and out of courts, Nariman’s contribution to the Supreme Court’s constitutional jurisprudence particularly those concerning the accountability of constitutional power is etched in the national consciousness.
“A gentleman to the core, Mr Nariman, the jurist, parliamentarian and humanist will be sorely missed. He will live in our imagination through fond memories of a life lived to the full. The nation’s high civilian honour of Padma Vibhushan conferred on Fali Nariman for public service makes him a part of the nation’s indelible consciousness,” Ashwani Kumar said. PTI SKC SKC TIR TIR
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