Vineet Saran
SKOCH India Law Award
Justice Vineet Saran
Former Judge, Supreme Court of India:
Justice Vineet Saran had a long and distinguished career at the Bar spanning over 30 years in the Allahabad High Court from 1980 to 2002 practicing in constitutional, civil and criminal cases. He conducted cases for various private and public sector companies and also as special counsel for the Central and State Governments. In 1995, he served as the Additional Advocate General for the State of Uttar Pradesh.
Justice Vineet Saran has held several important judicial appointments throughout his career since being appointed as a permanent judge of the Allahabad High Court on February 14th, 2002, where he served for 13 years, including those in the Karanataka High Court (2015); Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court (2016); before being elevated to the Supreme Court of India (2018).
He was at Supreme Court for 4 years that were marked by a number of landmark judgements on reservations including Chebrolu Leela Prasad Rao v. State of Andhra Pradesh (2020); TN Medical Officers Association v. Union of India (2020); State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh (2020).
He was part of several Constitution benches and his judgements have had far reaching impact.
Justice Vineet Saran authored the judgment in Pam Developments v State of West Bengal (2019). Justice Saran held that Section 34 under the Arbitration Act does not provide for any special treatment to the Government insofar as stay applications are concerned. He observed that merely because the Code of Civil Procedure 1908 allows for differential treatment to the Government, it does not follow that the Arbitration Act also does. One of the most notable judgements have been that of the five-judge Bench in New India Assurance Co. Ltd. v Hilli Multipurpose Cold Storage Pvt. Ltd. (2020) decided on the amount of time goods/service providers can take to respond to complaints filed against them under the Consumer Protection Act, 1986. Authoring the unanimous judgement Justice Saran held that Section 13(2)(a) was mandatory stating that if the legislature intended it to be merely a directory, it would have included a provision for further extensions.
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