Fazal Ali

Sir Saiyid Fazl Ali, OBE (19 September 1886 – 22 August 1959) was an Indian judge, the governor of two Indian states (Assam and Odisha), and the head of the States Reorganisation Commission which determined the boundaries of several Indian states in December 1953.

The commission submitted its report in September 1953, broadly accepting language as the basis of reorganisation of states.

Career

Fazl belonged to an aristocratic Syed Zamindar family of Bihar state. He studied law and began practicing. Eventually he was raised to the judiciary. Sir Fazl Ali was successively given the title of Khan Sahib first and of Khan Bahadur later. In 1918, he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). In April 1928 he was appointed as judge of Patna High Court and went on to serve as its acting chief justice in1938 and later as permanent chief justice in 1943. He was elevated to then Federal Court of India on 9 June 1947 and later appointed as judge of Supreme Court of India upon its establishment on 26 January 1950. In 1951 he became the first judge to retire from Supreme Court of India. He was knighted in the 1941 New Year Honours list and invested with his knighthood on 1 May 1942 by the Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow.

India became independent in 1947 as the Dominion of India. Under the new dispensation of the Republic of India, Sir Fazl Ali was Governor of Odisha from 1952 to 1954, and Governor of Assam from 1956 to 1959. He died while serving as Governor of Assam. Whilst in Assam, he made strenuous efforts to bring the disgruntled Naga tribals into the mainstream of society. He opened the first college in the Naga heartland in Mokokchung, which is today known as 'Fazl Ali College' in his honour. The College celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2010.

Over the course of his tenure on the Supreme Court, Fazl Ali authored 56 judgments and was a part of 113 benches. Notably, he dissented in two early free speech cases before the Supreme Court, Romesh Thapar v. State of Madras (1950) and Brij Bhushan v. State of Delhi (1950).

Fazl Ali headed the States Reorganisation Commission that made recommendations about the reorganization of India's states. For his services to India, he was bestowed with the country's second-highest civilian honour, the Padma Vibhushan, by the government of India in 1956.