Sam Piroj Bharucha

Sam Piroj Bharucha (6 May 1937) is a former Chief Justice of India, serving from November 2001 until his retirement in 2002.^[2]

Sam Piroj Bharucha
30th Chief Justice of India
In office 1 November 2001 – 5 May 2002
Appointed by	K. R. Narayanan
Preceded by	Adarsh Sein Anand
Succeeded by	Bhupinder Nath Kirpal
Judge of Supreme Court of India
In office 1 July 1992 – 31 October 2001
Nominated by	Madhukar Hiralal Kania
Appointed by	K. R. Narayanan
13th Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court[1]
In office 1 November 1991 – 30 June 1992
Nominated by	Ranganath Misra
Appointed by	Ramaswamy Venkataraman
Preceded by	Shanmughasundaram Mohan
Succeeded by	S. B. Majumdar
Judge of Bombay High Court
In office 19 September 1977 – 31 October 1991
Nominated by	Mirza Hameedullah Beg
Appointed by	Neelam Sanjiva Reddy
Personal details
Born	(1937-05-06) 6 May 1937 (age 88) Gangtok, Sikkim, British India

The President of India, K. R. Narayanan administering the oath of office of the Chief Justice of India to Sam Piroj Bharucha at the Ashok Hall of the Rashtrapati Bhavan

He began his legal career as an advocate of the Bombay High Court in 1960, and was appointed an Additional Judge in 1977. His judgeship was made permanent in 1978, and in 1991 he was appointed Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court. In 1992, he was appointed to the Supreme Court of India, and became Chief Justice in 2001.^[3]

Bharucha is responsible for many significant legal decisions. He was part of the five-judge constitutional panel which unanimously ruled on the 2001 dismissal of J. Jayalalithaa as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. It was the first and only such dismissal of a chief minister in India's history.^[4]

Over the course of his Supreme Court tenure, Bharucha authored 344 judgments and sat on 1,307 benches.^[5]