Justice Joseph, the controversial but ‘compassionate’ judge who has retired from the India’s Supreme Court, was seen to have held views in line with the Church — particularly on abortion and divorce.

“If someone is to take a vote on who is the nicest judge, Kurian Joseph will win,” Attorney General K.K. Venugopal said to a huge crowd gathered on the Supreme Court lawns to bid farewell to the judge on November 29.

In his five-year-eight-month tenure as an apex court judge, Justice Joseph always had a trademark smile on his face even during the many the watershed moments for India’s judiciary. But the “compassionate judge” has never made any bones about taking on the government. From quashing the Narendra Modi government’s ambitious National Judicial Appointments Commission in 2015 to holding a press conference against then Chief Justice Dipak Misra in January 2018, Joseph has constantly been at the centre of controversy.

However, his first ‘controversy’ happened in April 2015 when he wrote to Modi expressing his inability to attend a conference of judges and chief ministers that was held on Good Friday.

“Secularism is being tinkered with,” Joseph had said objecting to holding official events on festivals of religious minorities. While Hindu radical websites attacked the judge, the church rallied behind him.

“There are judges who have political affiliations to far-right organizations. So while it is unfair to single out Justice Joseph for his views, judges must certainly have a code of conduct governing their affiliations,” said senior advocate Colin Gonsalves.

As a matter of principle, Joseph never delivered a death sentence in his 18-year career as a judge. The controversial 2015 ruling in which the top court awarded the death penalty to terror-convict Yakub Memon turned dramatic after a two-judge bench of Justices Joseph and Anil Dave delivered a split verdict.

“There have been many judges who have taken a principled anti-death penalty stand. Some may have been influenced by their religious views but I don’t see anything wrong with that,” said senior advocate Sanjay Hegde.

“Justice M.B. Shah, a Jain, was known as a judge who would never award the death penalty. Lawyers would deliberately try and get their cases listed before him,” he added.

When one such case was before a bench headed by Joseph in July, he gave away what he thought of abortion in a single word — murder.

“You should make the mother hear her child’s heartbeat,” Joseph said.