Fazl Ali

Hon’ble Sir Fazl Ali
3rd Governor of Odisha
In office 7 June 1952 – 9 February 1954
Preceded by	Asaf Ali
Succeeded by	P. S. Kumaraswamy Raja
Judge of Supreme Court of India
In office 15 October 1951 – 30 May 1952
Appointed by	President
Chief Justice of Patna High Court
In office 19 January 1943 – 14 October 1946
Personal details
Born	19 September 1886
Died	22 August 1959(1959-08-22) (aged 72)
Parent	Saiyid Nazir Ali (father) Kubra Begum (mother)

Khan Bahadur Sir Syed 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 the December 1953.Their commission submitted the report in September 1953 broadly accepting the language as the basis of reorganisation of states.

Career

Fazl belonged to an aristocratic Zamindar (landlord) 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). He was knighted in the New Year's Honours list of 1941 and invested with his knighthood on 1 May 1942 by the Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow.

India became independent in 1947. Under the new dispensation, Fazl Ali was governor of Odisha from 1952 to 1956 and 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.

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.

Family and personal life

Fazl Ali's eldest son, the late Syed Murtaza Fazl Ali, followed in the footsteps of his father and took up the profession of law. In 1958, at age 38, he was elevated to the judiciary and appointed a judge of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court. In 1966, he became the Chief Justice of the same court, thereby becoming one of the youngest holders of that high office; he was only 43. In 1975, he was made a Judge of the Supreme Court of India, thus making for a very rare instance of father and son both being supreme court judges in India. He died in 1985 while yet a sitting judge of the supreme court.

Shri Fazl Ali was a lawyer and his principal career was on the Bench, a long career as a judge of the Patna High Court, then Chief Justice of Patna, then a judge of the Federal Court of India and then a judge of the Supreme Court of India; all together that covers a very long period of time. And he was a very distinguished judge, later too he became the Governor of Orissa. After that, for a period he served in an important commission, the States Re-organisation Commission. Then he went to Assam as Governor.

There is hardly any office, certainly not the office of Governor in India which is more difficult and more exacting than that of the Governor of Assam, because, apart from being the Governor of an important state, he is the Special Representative of the Government of India in regard to tribal areas there and in regard now to the Naga Hills-Tuensang area. It is a very big loss, not only of a great Indian, a great public servant but of a person engaged in this important and delicate task of winning over really by his goodwill and affection many of those people who are dissatisfied and who are troubled. Many will mourn his loss all over India including the people of the Naga Hills-Tuensang Division who will also greatly mourn his loss.

External links

• Lokshaba https://eparlib.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/1806/1/lsd_02_08_22-08-1959.pdf page 52
• http://assamassembly.gov.in/governor-list.html