Baharul Islam



Baharul Islam (1 March 1918 – 5 February 1993) was an Indian politician and judge of the Supreme Court of India. He was elected to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament of India as a member of the Indian National Congress. In 1972 he resigned from the Rajya Sabha to become a judge in the Gauhati High Court after retiring from the role of chief justice of the Gauhati High Court. He was later recalled and made a Judge of the Supreme court. In that position he passed a judgement absolving the then-Chief Minister of Bihar Jagannath Mishra in the urban cooperative bank scandal. He later resigned from the Supreme court to contest elections as a Congress party candidate and was elected back to the Rajya Sabha.

Early life
He was born in the village of Udiana in the district of Kamrup, Assam. Islam attended Gurdon High School in Nalbari, and then Cotton College in Guwahati, as well as Aligarh Muslim University.

Career
Islam enrolled as an advocate of the Assam High Court in 1951 and as an advocate of the Supreme Court in 1958. He later joined the Indian National Congress party in 1956. Islam was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 1962 and 1968, which he resigned from in 1972. He was then appointed judge of the then Assam and Nagaland High Court (Now Gauhati High Court) on 20 January 1972. Islam was appointed the acting chief justice of the Gauhati High Court on March 11, 1979 and became chief justice on 7 July 1979. He retired from this role on 1 March 1980.

Islam was later appointed to the Supreme Court of India on 4 December 1980. As retired judges were not usually reappointed, this was unprecedented. He resigned from the Supreme Court on January 12, 1983 to contest from Barpeta, Assam to the Lok Sabha as a Congress party candidate, however as elections in Assam were postponed in the 1984 Indian general election, he was reelected to the Rajya Sabha.

He was a member of the Gauhati High Court Bar Association.

Committees
In 1987 Islam committee was appointed to draft the legislation emphasizing the rights, equal opportunities, and full participation of disabled persons.