Justice Dr S Muralidhar: A personality I admire

 

In the era where people get offended with things not pointed at them and take ego above everything we have a Judge who asks members of the bar not to address him as My Lord or Your Lordship. Believed to be started from the British India era, the practice continues, even though some bar associations have suggested addressing judges as sir/madam.

A BSc in Chemistry in first-class, rank 1 in LLB, LLM and representing India in a Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, the oldest and largest in the world, Justice Muralidhar was an outstanding student. He has been awarded a PhD. in law as well. He is a qualified Company Secretary as well.

He started a career in law in Chennai and moved to Delhi. He has worked as a junior lawyer to the then Additional Solicitor General G Ramaswamy who became Attorney General of India. He has fought pro bono for Bhopal gas Tragedy victims and victims of mental illness locked up in jail. He has been appointed amicus curiae by SC in various PILs. He has been a standing counsel for the National Human Rights Commission and Election Commission of India.

He was elevated to the bench in 2006 and has been known to give bold decisions. From rejecting petitions such as independent probe into Sunanda Pushkar case calling it Political interest Litigation to being a part of the bench that acknowledged Section 377 IPC is violating article 21,14, and 15 of the constitution. He also ruled in favour of an RTI activist in Secretary General, SC vs Subhash Agarwal (2010) allowing it to sought information on the declaration of personal assets by Judges of Supreme Court stating that such information isn’t protected by Section 8(1)(j) of RTI Act 2005.

“Bringing criminals responsible for the mass crimes, who enjoy political patronage, to justice poses a serious challenge to our legal system… Neither ‘crimes against humanity’ nor ‘genocide’ is part of our domestic law of crime. This loophole needs to be addressed urgently.” Justice Muralidhar had said in a judgment regarding the 1984 Sikh riots in a judgement against Sajjan Kumar.

He has been appointed as the Chief Justice of Odisha High Court and I am pretty excited about it, even though I don’t practice law.