NEW DELHI: Narendra Modi had to fill in his wife's name for the first time in his nomination papers because of a ruling by P Sathasivam that candidates couldn't leave any columns blank. Not putting down Jashodaben's name might have left the BJP prime ministerial candidate vulnerable to prosecution.Sathasivam, the 40th chief justice of India, will leave office in a few days, as he turns 65, after spending about a year in the job, having succeeded Altamas Kabir in July 2013. Apart from the decision above, Sathasivam was responsible for a handful of rulings that had wide-ranging impact on issues such as clemency for death row convicts and his tenure took place at a time when the Supreme Court was rocked by sexual harassment allegations against former judges.ET spoke to lawyers and other legal experts and asked how they would assess his term of office. Many were unanimous in saying that his most important contribution was giving voters the ability to express their rejection of candidates at election time through the 'none of the above' or NOTA option.Sathasivam asked the Election Commission to make sure that a NOTA button was provided on the voting machine. "Justice Sathasivam is a good judge. He lent a degree of balance to the court after the rather chaotic stint of Justice Kabir. He took a definite stand on NOTA," said constitutional expert and senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan.He took a humane approach in death penalty cases, Dhavan said. He plugged loopholes in the law to ensure that no government would hang someone in seeming haste for apparently political reasons, as in the case of Parliament attack case accused Mohammad Afzal Guru, without informing the convict's family.Sathasivam ruled that the families of death row convicts would get an opportunity for final farewells. The convict would also get time to put affairs in order before the sentence was carried out.The outgoing CJI--a soft-spoken, courteous, unfailingly polite and patient man according to people who dealt with him in court and outside it--also made it legally impossible for the state to execute the mentally ill or medically unfit.Any prolonged and unnecessary delay in carrying out a death sentence would entitle a convict to have his sentence commuted to life, he said. That ruling that may not have gone down well with a government opposed to clemency for the likes of Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar, who was convicted of involvement in a terrorist bomb attack in Delhi but whose mental health had deteriorated while on death row. It also meant a reprieve for those sentenced in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case as their sentence hadn't been carried out for more than a decade.Others cited his decision to free the ailing, wheel-chair bound octogenarian Khalil Chisti, involved in a 20-year-old murder case, to return to Pakistan as a sign of his compassion as a judge."After becoming CJI, Justice Sathasivam has behaved well," said activist lawyer and Aam Aadmi Party leader Prashant Bhushan. "He has delivered a number of good judgements such as NOTA and on human rights in particular," Bhushan said. "However, his ruling in the Muzzafarnagar riots was disappointing," he said.Justice Sathasivam indicted the Akhilesh Yadav government and the central government for failing to prevent the riots, but lauded Uttar Pradesh for post-riots relief and rehabilitation efforts, based on the claims made by it. Activists on the ground have said that this doesn't necessarily match the ground situation.Dhavan, however, contested this view."Justice Sathasivam did a good job in the riots case, a very balanced job," he said. "He heard the case with extreme patience, passed orders to improve things."Sathasivam's administrative acumen, despite lack of experience as a High Court chief justice came in for fair degree of praise. He had moved to the Supreme Court in 2007 after serving as a judge in the Madras and Punjab and Haryana High Courts. "He allocated work in a satisfactory manner, brought to the fore constitution benches to deal with complicated legal issues," Dhavan said.Senior advocate Dushyant Dave, however, expressed disappointment over his leadership with regard to the sexual harassment allegations and the so-called bench-hunting controversy."He was unable to address serious problems plaguing the court, particularly the registry (the executive wing of the court)," Dave said. The senior lawyer had accused the registry of being hand-in-glove with litigants in arranging to make sure that certain matters were heard by particular benches."He did not leave any visible mark, much less an indelible mark on the judiciary," said Dave, who repeatedly drew Sathasivam's attention to the bench hunting.Justice Sathasivam undid some of these decisions but is also said to have declined to interfere in another such instance. The outgoing CJI cited procedural hurdles to justify his refusal to recall the order, according to people aware of this, adding that it was based on a misinterpretation of his administrative power over other judges.Dave even went to the extent of writing an open letter to the CJI on the issue, which had judicial circles agog for several days, but Sathasivam stuck to his position that he could not interfere with judicial orders of a concomitant court unless it was curative or by way of a review.Elsewhere, despite repeated complaints against a judge who kept coming late to court, he didn't withdraw work from the person, something that was mystifying as Sathasivam himself was a stickler for punctuality, members of the bar said on condition of anonymity. But where opinion of him is sharply divided is perhaps over the explosive revelations of sexual harassment. While some say he managed to tide things over without allowing too much embarrassment to attach itself to the country's top court, others said he simply wasn't tough enough. "His performance on this score was good in spirit," said Dhavan. "Yet at the same time an apex court panel indicted Justice (AK) Ganguly after denying any jurisdiction over him." In the case of the other former judge, more decisive action could have been taken, he said.The CJI set up a panel to suggest a mechanism to deal with all such future complaints involving judges.Bhushan questioned his ruling in another case. "Justice Sathasivam's court manners are impeccable, he listens well, behaves well. He is very fair in court but his earlier judgement in the Mayawati (disproportionate assets) case was totally wrongly decided."His office declined a formal interview request before leaving office, but in one given days before he took over as CJI, Sathasivam had been a gracious and patient host despite his hectic schedule, running a fever and suffering from a hoarse throat.Senior advocate CS Vaidyanathan vouched for his humility and simplicity. "He's always affable, amiable and approachable," he said. "Though he had a very good practice, he's always been very simple." Hailing from a family of farmers, Sathasivam was the first graduate from his village in Tamil Nadu, before studying law. Even now, one of his sons farms the ancestral land in the village, additional solicitor general KV Vishwanath said.The other son and daughter have nothing to do with law, a fact that gives him an edge in the race to be the Lokpal, speculation over which has gained strength because of the timing of the next meeting called by the PM to push ahead with the process.