Justice Lakshmanan, ex-judge of SC & prolific writer, dead at 78

1942-2020

Justice Lakshmanan, ex-judge of SC & prolific writer, dead at 78

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai: 28.08.2020

Former Supreme Court judge and chairperson of law commission of India Justice A R Lakshmanan passed away on Wednesday in a private hospital in Trichy. He was 78.

Juctice Lakshmanan’s wife Meenakshi Aachi also died in Trichy just three days ago. He is survived by sons A R L Arunachalam and A R L Sundaresan, a designated senior counsel, and daughters Umayal and Saravanavalli.

Justice Lakshmanan, who was also a prolific writer and author of several books in English and Tamil, was born in Devakottai. He started his career as an advocate in 1968.

In 1990, Justice Lakshmanan was appointed a judge of the Madras high court. During the J Jayalalithaa regime, a false ganja case was slapped on Justice Lakshmanan’s son-in-law, kicking up a nationwide row.

In 1997, he was transferred to the Kerala high court and later made the Chief Justice of the Rajasthan high court and then to the Andhra Pradesh high court. In December 2002, he was elevated to a judge of the Supreme Court, where he served till March 21, 2007.

“As a judge, he had delivered more than 1.3 lakh judgments, many of them landmark ones,” said senior advocate and former additional solicitor-general of India M Ravindran.

Around 9pm on Wednesday, Justice Lakshmanan was rushed to a private hospital in Trichy following cardiac complaints. According to hospital sources, his vital signs were weak when he was brought to the hospital. A few hours into hospitalisation, his health deteriorated, and he died.

His body was taken to his house at Devakottai. Later, the mortal remains were cremated at a crematorium near Virusuzhi river in Devakottai on Thursday afternoon.

CM Edappadi K Palaniswami on Thursday expressed anguish over the former judge’s death. “The death of justice Lakshmanan has caused an irreparable loss to Tamil Nadu and to the field of judiciary,” he said, hailing the excellent work of Justice Lakshmanan when he was secretary of Madras Bar Association and later as chairman of National Law Commission. Lakshmanan was a member of the Supreme Court’s empowered committee to resolve Mullaperiyar dispute.

The chief minister extended his deepest condolences and sympathies to the family and the legal fraternity.