“The big moment for Justice Nazeer came, in my view, when he was hearing the Ayodhya matter,” the bar association president recalled, “He was the only minority judge in the Supreme Court, and as such, he had to be part of that bench.” There was an expectation that Justice Nazeer would author a separate judgement, “concurring, or not”, Singh said. “But he is a true embodiment of secularism in this country. He not only agreed to give a unanimous verdict without naming who wrote that judgement, but he also agreed with the view of the majority.”

The Ayodhya judgement, Singh further said, demonstrated Justice Nazeer’s ‘true nature’ characterised by an inclination to put “the nation, first; himself, as a judge, second; and himself, as an individual, last” in the order of priority. “This is what is expected of a judge when they take the oath. They must prioritise the nation first. As an Indian, they are required to look at the large country, that is India, and serve the institution as a true Indian.”

In November 2019, a five-judge Constitution Bench of which Justice Nazeer was a part, delivered the judgement in the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi case, by which, the title over the disputed land in Ayodhya was unanimously granted to the deity Shri Ram Virajman, allowing the construction of a separate temple where the Babri Masjid once stood. The Sunni Waqf Board, on the other hand, was allocated five acres of land in a separate site to build a mosque.