- Tuesday, February 25, 2025
He had regretted representing Union Carbide in the 1984 industrial disaster that killed several thousand people in the Indian city of Bhopal.
By: Shubham Ghosh
EMINENT Indian constitutional jurist Fali Sam Nariman on Wednesday (21) passed away in New Delhi at the age of 95. He was suffering from various ailments, including cardiac issues.
Born in erstwhile Rangoon in British Burma in January 1929 to Parsi parents, he received his education in India’s Shimla and Mumbai (formerly Bombay). The family had fled to India in 1942 in the face of Japanese invasion during the Second World War. In 1950, Nariman enrolled as an advocate in the Bombay high court and became a senior advocate a decade later. Since 1972, Nariman remained an advocate in India’s Supreme Court in New Delhi.
He also served as the president of the Bar Association of India between 1991 and 2010. Prior to that, he was the additional solicitor general between 1972 and 1975 when he resigned from the post during the Emergency that was called by the government of then prime minister Indira Gandhi.
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Among the many significant cases that Nariman had taken in his illustrious career was the Bhopal gas tragedy of December 1984. In that, he had represented Union Carbide, the American company accused over the deaths of thousands and injuries to many more in leakage of toxic gas from a plant of the company in the central Indian city of Bhopal. He had regretted his decision later even though he had played a key role in arriving at a $470-million deal between the victims and the company outside the court.
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Nariman was conferred many awards, including India’s second-highest Padma Vibhushan in 2007 and third-highest Padma Bhushan in 1991. He also received the Gruber Prize for Justice in 2002.
He was appointed by the president of India to the Rajya Sabha or Upper House of the Indian parliament in 1999 where he continued till 2005.
Nariman had also served in various capacities in international bodies. He was the president of International Council for Commercial Arbitration; vice chairman of the Internal Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce; honorary member of the International Commission of Jurists; member of the London Court of International Arbitration; chairman of the Executive Committee of the International Commission of Jurists, among others.
His autobiography Before Memory Fades was published in 2010. His latest book You Must Know Your Constitution came out in September last year.
Former judge of the Indian Supreme Court, Rohinton Fali Nariman, is the son of Fali S Nariman.
In December last year, Nariman had criticised the Supreme Court’s judgment upholding the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution that gave a special status to the former state of Jammu and Kashmir.
In an interview to India Today, he had said, “It (the verdict) is, in my view, an incorrect appreciation of the Constitution, which I didn’t expect the court to do.”
Prime minister Narendra Modi expressed condolences over Nariman’s demise.
In a post on X, he said, “Shri Fali Nariman Ji was among the most outstanding legal minds and intellectuals. He devoted his life to making justice accessible to common citizens. I am pained by his passing away. My thoughts are with his family and admirers. May his soul rest in peace.”
