India, March 24 -- Former chief justice of India Ramesh Chandra Lahoti, who retired from the Supreme Court in 2005, passed away on Wednesday, aged 82. Days prior to his retirement, as head of a constitution bench, he had given a landmark decision upholding a Gujarat law banning cow slaughter. Born in 1940, the former CJI hailed from Guna in Madhya Pradesh. In April 1977 he was recruited to the State Higher Judicial Service and was appointed as a district and sessions judge. A year later, he resigned to return to the Bar and established a legal practice at the Madhya Pradesh high court. In May 1988, he was elevated as an additi-onal judge of the high court, and was later made permanent. In 1994, he was transferred to the Delhi high court and went on to become a Supreme Court justice in December 1998. On June 1, 2004 he was appointed CJI and retired on October 31, 2005 after serving 17 months at the helm of the judiciary.HTC...