The Wire Staff 
New Delhi: Former Chief Justice of India and Rajya Sabha MP Ranjan Gogoi will receive the highest civilian award in Assam, the ‘Assam Baibhav’.
State chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma made this announcement on Tuesday.
The news agency ANI said Sarma has noted that the awards will be given on February 10.
This is the third year on which the awards will be given. “In the first year, we gave the Assam Baibhav award to Ratan Tata and last year we gave the award to Tapan Saikia. This time, the Assam government has selected former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Ranjan Gogoi for the Assam Baibhav award,” Sarma told reporters.
Sarma also posted on X, saying,
“Being the first judge from the North East to occupy the august office of Chief Justice of India, this award recognises his exceptional efforts to expand the delivery of justice and enrich our jurisprudence.”
“If Ram Temple has been established in Ayodhya today again, some credit goes to an Assamese,” Sarma also underscored, according to the Times of India.
Gogoi became a nominated Rajya Sabha MP shortly after retiring as Chief Justice. A bench led by him had, in 2019, delivered the landmark verdict in the Ram Janmabhumi-Babri Masjid title dispute, in favour of the temple side.
Gogoi made his first speech in the parliament, three years and four months since he was nominated – in support of the Union government’s contentious Delhi Services Act, in August.
In 2021, the Supreme Court closed a suo motu case which had been initiated after serious sexual harassment allegations were levelled against Gogoi in 2019 by a former staffer of the court.