Former Chief Justice of India Altamas Kabir passed away in Kolkata on Sunday at 2:52 pm after a prolonged illness related to his kidneys.
He was in a critical condition and had been put on life support initially at the Apollo Gleneagles Hospitals in Kolkata. He was suffering from End Stage Renal Disease, Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, Coronary Artery Disease and Urinary Tuberculosis.
Kabir had been admitted to the Apollo Hospital on February 8 with symptoms of fever with chills, urinary retention, hematuria and extreme weakness.
Frmer Chief Justice Altamas Kabir was suffering from End Stage Renal Disease, Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, Coronary Artery Disease & Urinary TB pic.twitter.com/no4SDBTlxv
— ANI (@ANI_news) February 19, 2017
Sixty-eight-year-old Kabir was in a critical condition and undergoing treatment at the Apollo Hospitals in Kolkata, according to the Press Trust of India. "He is on a life support system since his condition is very critical. He is suffering from a kidney-related ailment," former Supreme Court judge Ashok Ganguly, a close friend of the former CJI, had told the news agency.
Kabir, who was born in the city (Calcutta then) in a Bengali Muslim family in 1948, was the 39th Chief Justice of India.
Kabir was made the Chief Justice of Jharkhand High Court on January 3, 2005, following his stint as an acting chief justice. He was elevated to a Supreme Court Justice on September 9, 2005, following which he became the Chief Justice of India on September 29, 2012.
Kabir served as CJI for over nine months before retiring on July 18, 2013. He was also a part of the bench which heard the case against two Italian Marines who had allegedly killed two fishermen off the coast of Kerala.
Towards the end of his tenure as the CJI, Kabir was accused of blocking Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya, a former Chief Justice of the Gujarat High Court, from being elevated to the Supreme Court. He allegedly delayed Bhattacharya's appointment to avenge the latter's decision of blocking his sister's elevation to the Kolkata High Court.
Kabir had also allegedly favoured the Sahara Group in its case against the Securities and Exchange Board (Sebi) on refunding Rs 24,000 crore to investors.
During his tenure as the CJI, Kabir also served as the Chancellor of the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, the chairman of the General Council of the Gujarat National Law University and the Visitor of the National Law School of India University.
Kabir was also a professor at the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, where he taught a course on Law and the Child.
