With the submission of the report on the contentious Telangana issue by the five-member Srikrishna Committee, Justice B.N. Srikrishna heading the panel has achieved a distinction of sort to probe into the most controversial issues of recent times while some other judges had refrained from taking up the challenge due to the high political stakes involved.
Justice Srikrishna panel might have taken a “pragmatic” approach while examining the issue relating to the formation of a separate Telangana state taking into consideration all the “pros and cons” and political implications threadbare but leaving the decision entirely to the political class showed the sagacity of Justice Srikrishna in handling such “sensitive” matters.
Justice Srikrishna, who retired as the Supreme Court judge on May 21, 2006 had earlier probed the 1992-93 Mumbai riots as a sitting judge of the Bombay high court after several judges had turned down the request to head the commission to inquire into the massive scale communal riots in the metropolis in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition.
Justice Srikrishna, know for his “impeachable integrity and fearlessness” in his report, now under consideration of the Supreme Court for enforcing its recommendations, did not hesitate in severely “indicting” certain political parties and their leaders, civil and police officials for their failure to check the communal violence in Mumbai.
His impartiality and fearlessness was evident during the examining of the riot victims and witnesses and as a result the then Shiv Sena-led government “disbanded” the panel in January 1996. But on a strong public demand, the commission was reconstituted in May with certain modification bringing in its ambit the March 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai. Though the report of the commission was never made public by successive governments in Maharasthra, it virtually had created problems for all the political parties.
Besides, Justice Srikrishna had probed the unprecedented violence within the Madras high court complex in February 2009 after the Tamil Nadu police had entered the court premises to quell the strike by lawyers.
The police and lawyers virtually were engaged in a ‘pitched battle’ with bar association divided vertically between ruling DMK and opposition AIADMK.