Sri Srinivasan could become the first Indian-American to be on the bench of the US Supreme Court after conservative icon Justice Antonin Scalia’s sudden death gave rise to speculation that President B
Sri Srinivasan could become the first Indian-American to be on the bench of the US Supreme Court after conservative icon Justice Antonin Scalia’s sudden death gave rise to speculation that President Barack Obama may nominate the moderate judge who enjoys imp-eccable bipartisan support.
Chandigarh-born Srikanth “Sri” Srinivasan, 48, tops the list of prospective justice to the country’s highest judicial body as Mr Obama said he plans to fulfil his “constitutional responsibilities to nominate a successor” to Scalia.
“Any list begins with Sri Srinivasan, a member of the US court of appeals for the district of Columbia Circuit — a traditional launching pad for Supreme Court nominees,” the CNN reported on Sunday.
Mr Srinivasan, whose mother is from Chennai and father was from Tirunelveli, is considered to have a bipartisan support in the Congress and is popular among both Democrats and Republican legislators. His parents migrated to the US in the 1960s.
He was sworn in as judge of the second most powerful court of the US in 2013, making him the first Asian-American and Indian-American to be on the bench of the US courts of appeal for the District of Columbia circuit.
“There’s always a short-list of potential justices that court experts and watchers have in their heads; Mr Obama will be cognisant that he is replacing a conservative icon and that might temper his choices, leading him to try to find someone that at least some Republicans in Congress might find acceptable,” it said.
The moderate DC circuit court of appeals judge, has already been labelled Mr Obama’s “Supreme Court nominee in waiting,” by Jeffrey Toobin, legal analyst for CNN and the New Yorker.
At a time of bitter political divide when it would be tough for Mr Obama to get through his nomination, Congressional experts pointed that Mr Srinivasan’s nomination as a federal judge was confirmed by the Senate in 2013 with a record 97-0 votes including the two Republican presidential aspirants — Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.
Mr Srinivasan, whom Mr Obama had first nominated to the post in 2012, was a high school basketball star in Kansas before attending Stanford University, which he graduated from in 1989.
He was Mr Obama’s principal deputy solicitor-general, most notably working on the successful fight against the Defence of Marriage Act, but also has experience on the other side of the aisle — serving as an assistant to the solicitor general during the George W. Bush administration and as a clerk to retired Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
Past reports have also labelled Mr Srinivasan as Mr Obama’s “Supreme Court nominee in waiting”.
Ms O’Connor, who had administered the oath of office as judge of the second most powerful court of the US in 2013, called Mr Srinivasan “fair, faultless and fabulous”.
79-year-old Justice Scalia, the longest-serving justice on the Supreme Court, died on Sunday in his sleep while on a hunting trip in Texas.
