Former SC judge PB Sawant passes away in Pune

Pune: Former Supreme Court Judge PB Sawant has passed away at his residence in Pune this morning. The 91-year-old retired judge was also the first President of Elgar Parishad in Pune.

As the former judge of the Bombay High Court, one of the most important acts was the inquiry on the Air India passenger flight crash at the Sahar International Airport in Mumbai in 1982. He was appointed as a Supreme Court judge in 1989. He also served with retired justice Hobset Suresh on an Indian People's Tribunal to investigate the Gujarat riots, which presented testimonies of the synchronised plans for the riots sparked after the Godhra train burning. He also chaired a committee investigating four Maharashtra ministers for corruption charges in 2003, leading to the resignation of two state cabinet ministers.

A democrat, Sawant has been vocal about the rights of people and media, and time and again expresses dissent over issues like abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir and the detention of several human rights activists and intellectuals in the Elgar Parishad case. Former chairperson of the Press Council of India (PCI), Sawant also advocated in a recent interview to the Caravan magazine that the PCI jurisdiction must extend to television and radio media as well.