Justice Bilal Nazki of the Bombay High Court has been promoted as Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court, an elevation that has raised eyebrows in judicial circles as the judge is due to retire on November 18 and will hold the top job for less than a week.

Speaking to reporters in Mumbai on Thursday, Nazki said that he had been promoted and would be taking charge in Orissa on Saturday. He would sit in court for three days from Monday after which he would come back to Mumbai before returning to his home state of Jammu and Kashmir.

“With this posting, I will be serving in the High Courts of all four regions in the country,” said Justice Nazki, who has been a High Court judge for almost 15 years now and has served in J&K and Andhra Pradesh.

He added that he would probably return to practising as a lawyer, when asked about his plans, and also said that he had a project in mind to pursue at the International Court of Justice at The Hague in 2011.

Justice Nazki apparently did not have an inkling about his elevation to Orissa as he had met reporters earlier this week and merely said that he would be retiring on November 18. There was some talk in judicial circles about two months ago about the judge moving to Orissa among others being transferred or promoted but that decision had not come through. Known as a tough judge with a reputation of being hard on government agencies, Justice Nazki had recently pulled up the Maharashtra Police in the case of a missing child.

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