Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Friday delivered a deeply personal farewell to Justice Sanjay Karol, describing his retiring colleague as a judge whose contribution to the law extended beyond the pronouncements he authored and into the human realities that judicial institutions are often called upon to confront.
Speaking at the ceremonial Bench convened on Justice Karol’s last working day at the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice reflected on a professional association that had unfolded over several stages of their respective careers. Their paths, he noted, had crossed first at the Bar, later as Advocate Generals, then as colleagues in the Himachal Pradesh High Court, before converging once again at the Supreme Court.
“There is something unusual about bidding farewell to a colleague whose judicial journey has intersected with one’s own,” the CJI observed, recalling the privilege of having witnessed Justice Karol’s professional evolution from close quarters.
Justice Karol, who was elevated to the Supreme Court in February 2023, retired on August 22 after a distinguished judicial career that included his tenure as Chief Justice of the Tripura and Patna High Courts. Yet, for the CJI, the measure of Justice Karol’s legacy could not be confined to the institutional milestones of his career or reduced to a catalogue of judicial decisions.
What stood out, he said, was the manner in which the Bar remembered him.
The legal fraternity, the CJI noted, spoke not merely of Justice Karol’s judgments but of his patience, courtesy and willingness to hear those who appeared before him. His courtroom, he suggested, carried with it a sense of reassurance—an attribute that, in the CJI’s words, constituted one of the finest tributes that could be paid to a person who had occupied high judicial office.
The Chief Justice then turned to what he described as a defining feature of Justice Karol’s jurisprudential approach: his ability to recognise those lived realities that can occasionally remain obscured beneath the abstraction of legal doctrine.
Over the years, Justice Karol had repeatedly brought legal visibility to concerns that might otherwise have remained at the margins of adjudication—the unpaid labour of homemakers, the dignity and rights of tribal women, and the needs and vulnerabilities of persons living with mental illness.
In doing so, the CJI said, Justice Karol had demonstrated that judicial rigour need not come at the cost of human sensitivity. Recalling their brief stint together in Himachal Pradesh, he said he had witnessed this quality first-hand. On the Bench, Justice Karol’s commitment to legal discipline and doctrinal scrutiny, he observed, never eclipsed the actual predicament of the litigant standing before the court.
The CJI also paid tribute to Justice Karol’s administrative stewardship, particularly his tenure as Chief Justice of the Tripura High Court. Faced with a formidable docket, Justice Karol helped bring down the pendency from over 60,000 cases to less than 27,000 within ten months through disciplined case listing, sustained attention to docket management and a willingness to personally shoulder some of the heaviest judicial rosters.
For CJI Surya Kant, this was emblematic of Justice Karol’s institutional ethos—one rooted in leadership by example rather than mere administrative supervision.
His tenure at the Patna High Court, which extended for over three years and substantially coincided with the extraordinary challenges posed by the pandemic, was also recalled. As Patron-in-Chief of the Bihar State Legal Services Authority, Justice Karol was credited with playing a significant role in the establishment of the State Mental Health Authority, further reflecting his engagement with questions situated at the intersection of law, institutional responsibility and human welfare.
“The more lasting contribution,” the CJI observed, lay in the manner in which Justice Karol approached every responsibility entrusted to him—with seriousness towards the law, sensitivity towards people and an unshakeable regard for the office he served.
In his concluding remarks, the Chief Justice moved from institutional tribute to personal farewell. The Bench, he said, would miss Justice Karol’s presence, his composure in difficult moments and the warmth he brought to those around him.
Wishing him health, peace and fulfilment in the years ahead, CJI Surya Kant said the next chapter of Justice Karol’s life should bring him the leisure that the demands of judicial office had rarely permitted, along with the satisfaction of knowing that he leaves behind not only a distinguished record of public service but also a rare reservoir of genuine affection.
As Justice Sanjay Karol demitted office, the farewell underscored a legacy that lay as much in his jurisprudence as in his judicial temperament—a legacy of a judge who, while remaining firmly anchored to the discipline of law, never lost sight of the people whose lives the law was ultimately meant to serve.
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