The President of India appointed Justice S Abdul Nazeer, as Governor of Andhra Pradesh on Sunday (February 12).
Justice Nazeer retired as a Supreme Court judge, on January 4. He was appointed to the Supreme Court on February 17, 2017, after being elevated from the Karnataka High Court.
Justice Nazeer (retd.) served on the Supreme Court bench that decided the Babri Masjid case.
However, Justice Nazeer is not the First Supreme Court Judge to be appointed as Governor after retirement from Supreme Court.
Before Justice Nazeer, two retired Supreme Court judges i.e former Chief Justice of India Justice P Sathasivam and former Justice M Fathima Beevi were appointed Governors of states
Former Chief Justice of India (CJI) P Sathasivam was appointed as Governor of Kerala in 2014.
Ex-Supreme Court Judge and First Woman Supreme Court Judge M Fatima Beevi served as Governor of Tamil Nadu from 1997 to 2001.
She retired in 1992 after being appointed to the Supreme Court as a Judge in 1989.
Governor Fathima Beevi resigned on July 1, 2001, before the end of her five-year term, due to controversy over her decision to invite J Jayalalitha to form the government, as well as friction with the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government following the dramatic midnight arrests of the then-78-year-old DMK president and former Chief Minister M Karunanidhi and his senior colleagues Murasoli Maran and T R Baalu.