Umesh Chandra Banerjee (18 November 1937 – 5 November 2012) was a

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

Indian jurist, who served as the chief justice of the

Hyderabad High Court The Telangana High Court is the High Court for the Indian state of Telangana. Founded by the 7th Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan, initially, it was set up as High Court of Hyderabad for the then Princely State of Hyderabad Deccan and later renamed ...

in 1998. He had also served as a permanent judge of the

Calcutta High Court The Calcutta High Court is the oldest High Court in India. It is located in B.B.D. Bagh, Kolkata, West Bengal. It has jurisdiction over the state of West Bengal and the Union Territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The High Court buildi ...

and as a judge of the

Supreme Court of India The Supreme Court of India ( IAST: ) is the supreme judicial authority of India and is the highest court of the Republic of India under the constitution. It is the most senior constitutional court, has the final decision in all legal matters ...

Early life

Born to Nalin Chandra Banerjee, an eminent criminal and constitutional lawyer, he graduated from the

Scottish Church College Scottish Church College is a college affiliated by Calcutta University, India. It offers selective co-educational undergraduate and postgraduate studies and is the oldest continuously running Christian liberal arts and sciences college in A ...

of the

University of Calcutta The University of Calcutta (informally known as Calcutta University; CU) is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate State university (India), state university in India, located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Considered ...

in 1961, before proceeding to study law at the

Inner Temple The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as the Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court and is a professional associations for barristers and judges. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wal ...

in London, from which he graduated in December, 1964.SAARC Law webpage

Career

He started out as a barrister at the

in 1965. He was appointed a permanent judge at the

in 1984. In February 1998, he was appointed Chief Justice of the

Andhra Pradesh High Court The High Court of Andhra Pradesh is the High Court of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. The seat of the High Court is currently located at Nelapadu. History The High Court of Andhra Pradesh was established in the year 1954 when the sta ...

. He was also appointed a judge of the

in December 1998. He retired in 2002. He was one of the founder members and later president of

SAARC The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is the regional intergovernmental organization and geopolitical union of states in South Asia. Its member states are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, ...

Law. In 2005, he served as chairman of the committee constituted by the

Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, c ...

on the fire in

Sabarmati Express The 19167 / 19168 Sabarmati Express is an express train which connects the city of Ahmedabad in the western state of Gujarat to Varanasi city in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh through Jhansi. The train may take up to two days to complete ...

at Godhra in the state of Gujarat, that led to 59 deaths. He concluded that the fire was accidental and not started by the Muslim mob. He also came down heavily on the Railway administration for failing to conduct a statutory inquiry into the accident, which he held was in breach of the Railway Act as well as the Accident Manual of the Zonal Railway. He also pulled up authorities for not making concerted efforts to preserve clues of the incident, instead choosing to dispose of the damaged portion of the S7 coach 'as scrap'. He served as an advisor and adjunct professor at the

Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law, IIT Kharagpur (RGSOIPL or IIT Kgp Law School) is a law school located in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India. An academic unit of Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, it is the first law schoo ...

of the

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT Kharagpur) is a public institute of technology established by the Government of India in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India. Established in 1951, the institute is the first of the IITs to be established ...

. He also served as a governing council member at the

in Calcutta, the

National Law School of India University The National Law School of India University (NLSIU or simply NLS) is a public law school and a National Law University located in Bangalore, Karnataka. It was the first National Law University to be established in India as well as one of the f ...

at Bangalore, and at the Nalsar University of Law in Hyderabad. He was also the founder president of the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research.Supreme Court Case Law
/ref> Later in 2006 Gujarat high court termed the appointment of the high-level Justice UC Banerjee panel that probed the Godhra train carnage as "unconstitutional, illegal and void". The formation of the commission was challenged by a victim Neelkanth Bhatia, who contended that there was already a commission probing the fire. Upholding the argument of the petitioner, the order passed by Justice DN Patel, stated: "The Railways has no authority to appoint such a committee as it was in gross violation of provisions of sections of the Indian Railways Act." It also dismissed the right of the railways to set up a high-level committee to ascertain how a fire had started on its own property, in order to make sure that it did not happen agai

Even as a special court in Ahmedabad on February 23, 2011 accepted the conspiracy theory in the burning of S7 coach of the Sabarmati Express, a theory validated by the Nanavati Commission in its final report, Banerjee told the press that he stood by his inquiry's conclusions "200%

"I stand by my report 200% that it was an accidental fire in a coach of the Sabarmati Express at Godhra station on February 27, 2002, and I will not deviate from that," he told PTI. He said he had prepared his inquiry report after extensively going into all aspects and examining 80 witnesses before finalising his conclusion. To a question, he said his report was never guided by any political considerations and was strictly based on evidences.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Banerjee, Umesh Chandra 1937 births 2012 deaths Indian barristers 20th-century Indian judges Chief Justices of the Andhra Pradesh High Court Judges of the Calcutta High Court Justices of the Supreme Court of India Members of the Inner Temple Scottish Church College alumni IIT Kharagpur faculty Founders of Indian schools and colleges 20th-century Indian lawyers Andhra Pradesh politicians