The Radcliffe Commissions
Bengal Boundary
Bengal Boundary
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Assumed office as Chief Justice of India in 1954 after Justice Mehr Chand Mahajan (a member of the Punjab Boundary Commission) stepped down from the same post. Fali S. Nariman in his memoirs has called him “perhaps the greatest judge” to have taken up the role of Chief Justice of India.
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Served as Minister for Minority Affairs in Nehru’s cabinet in 1950, as the Law Minister for India in 1952. Notable for introducing the second and fifth amendments to the Indian Constitution in the Lok Sabha.
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The fifth Chief Justice of Pakistan, had been a part of the Indian Civil Services under the British Raj. Played the role of Custodian of Evacuee Property in Punjab between 1947 and 1952 and later served as the Chief Election Commissioner for Pakistan.
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Was the first Chief Justice of the Dacca High Court (in East Pakistan, later Bangladesh) and later, a justice of the Federal Court of Pakistan; Led an inquiry in 1952 into the assassination of Liaqat Ali Khan, the first Prime Minister of Pakistan.
The third Chief Justice of India, previously Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir under Maharajah Hari Singh and later played a key role in the state’s accession to the Union of India.
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The only Sikh judge in either commission, he had once freed Ganga Singh Dhillon a pioneer for the demand for Khalistan on bail when the latter was charged with the murder of two Muslims on the Grand Trunk Road.
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The second Chief Justice of Pakistan who famously validated the dissolution of his country’s Constituent Assembly. He was later a critic of Zia Ul Haq’s regime which pressed religious majoritarianism, saying that Jinnah truly stood for a secular state.
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Served as the Governor of the Sindh province. He was vehemently critical of the boundary commission he was part of, suspecting that it was all a farce because he believed Radcliffe and Mountbatten had already decided things in advance. He even offered to resign from the commission before the report was produced.
