Indian
Express: National: Sunday, 01 March 2020.
ON
THURSDAY morning, there was a beeline for courtroom No. 38 of the Delhi High
Court. While the lawyers seemed restless, the judge whom they were all there
for, Justice S Muralidhar, himself walked in appearing unfazed and bearing his
trademark grin.
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| Justice Muralidhar |
The
case before him was P V Kapur v Standard Chartered Bank, a PIL on running of
commercial establishments in residential areas. Ruling in favour of the
residents, the 58-year-old finally acknowledged the elephant in the room. In a
brief remark to the lawyers, he said, “This is my last judicial act as a judge
of the Delhi High Court.”
Those
who know Justice Muralidhar say that was typical of the man who, in his 14
years as a judge and before that his long practice as a lawyer, has let his
actions speak louder than words.
Last
week, as Delhi was engulfed by riots, both his actions and his words stood out particularly
at a time when institution after institution was seen to have abdicated its
responsibility. At a hearing held at his residence at 12.30 am on the night of
Tueday-Wednesday, responding to a panic call, Justice Muralidhar intervened to
ensure safe passage for injured victims of riots stuck at a hospital in New
Mustafabad.
The
next day, at a hearing convened to take stock of the situation, Justice
Muralidhar pulled up the Delhi Police, asking why FIRs had not been registered
against those who had made hate speeches. When police and Solicitor General of
India Tushar Mehta claimed they hadn’t heard the same, the judge ensured that
the speeches were played in open court.
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Those who know Justice Muralidhar say that was typical of the man who, in his
14 years as a judge and before that his long practice as a lawyer, has let his
actions speak louder than words.
Before
the day ended, there was another development. The government cleared Justice
Muralidhar’s transfer to the Punjab and Haryana High Court, provoking protests
by the Opposition. The third-most senior judge of the Delhi HC will now be the
second-most senior in the Punjab and Haryana HC. The Delhi HC Bar Association
has been opposing his transfer since the Supreme Court collegium first
recommended it two weeks ago without stating any reasons.
“Empathetic”,
“fair” and “unswerving” are adjectives that come up across the board when peers
are asked to describe Justice Muralidhar’s stints at the Bar and the Bench.
Starting
his career as a company secretary, Justice Muralidhar became a lawyer in 1984,
and three years later, shifted his practice from Chennai to Delhi. He next
worked as a junior to legendary lawyer G Ramaswamy, who would later become the
Attorney General for India. It was while working for Ramaswamy that the
classical music enthusiast met Usha Ramanathan, a law researcher who later
became his wife.
As
an advocate, he appeared mostly in civil liberties cases, including
representing Narmada Bachao Andolan activists and victims of the Bhopal gas
tragedy.
In
1991, Justice Muralidhar was appointed advocate-on-record for the Election
Commission of India, then headed by the iconic T N Seshan. In what was seen as
an attempt to dilute his powers, the then Congress-led government appointed two
more election commissioners. Seshan took the government to court and picked
Muralidhar as his lawyer. Muralidhar first resigned from his EC post to act as
Seshan’s lawyer to avoid any potential conflict of interest. After the case was
over, with the Supreme Court upholding the government’s move, the EC
re-appointed him as its lawyer.
A
senior advocate who began his practice around the same time as Justice
Muralidhar says, “A lot of stalwarts argued the case, including Nani Palkhivala
(who appeared for Seshan). But Justice Muralidhar’s seemingly small act stands
out.” The advocate adds, “His honesty defines him. Even in a profession where
one is constantly peer-reviewed and scrutinised, there is not a single thing
one can hold against him.”
Justice
Muralidhar was also standing counsel for the National Human Rights Commission,
and was actively involved in the Supreme Court Legal Aid Committee. Having done
PhD from Delhi University, he served as a part-time member of the Law
Commission from 2002 for four years. His thesis, ‘Law, Poverty and Legal Aid:
Access to Criminal Justice’, was published as a book in 2004. Two years later,
at the age of 45, Justice Muralidhar was appointed as a judge of the Delhi HC.
His
name was recommended by the HC Collegium led by its then Chief Justice
Markandey Katju. “Justice Katju had the ability to spot potential. It also
helped Muralidhar’s case that the Supreme Court Collegium was then headed by
Chief Justice of India Y K Sabharwal, who was originally from the Delhi HC,” a
former judge says.
His
stint in the HC has been marked by a string of illustrious cases. In 2009, he
was part of the bench with Justice A P Shah that delivered the landmark verdict
decriminalising homosexuality.
In
2010, Justice Muralidhar ruled that the office of the CJI was within the
purview of the Right to Information Act, and ruled in favour of an RTI activist
who had sought information on assets of judges. In an extraordinary response to
the verdict, the Supreme Court, headed by CJI K G Balakrishnan, in its
administrative avatar challenged the HC decision before its judicial avatar.
Justice Balakrishnan was later accused of holding disproportionate assets. In
November last year, nine years after the HC ruling, the Supreme Court upheld
Justice Muralidhar’s verdict.
In
October 2018, Justice Muralidhar along with Justice Vinod Goel overturned the
acquittal of Congress leader Sajjan Kumar by a lower court in the 1984
anti-Sikh riots. He held that the trial court had evaluated evidence on
“erroneous considerations”, and accused the Delhi Police of “blatantly
abetting” the riots.
The
same month, Justice Muralidhar cancelled the transit-remand of political activist
Gautam Navlakha, who had been arrested in the Bhima-Koregoan case, after
highlighting gaps in the Pune police’s actions. The case was recently
transferred to the NIA, after the NCP that is part of the ruling coalition in
Maharashtra indicated that the Bhima- Koregaon case didn’t hold much water.
In
November 2018, the bench of Justices Muralidhar and Goel, in another reversal
of a trial court judgment, convicted 16 former police personnel in the killing
of 42 Muslims in the 1987 Hashimpura massacre.
As
a judge, Justice Muralidhar is also remembered for instructing lawyers not to
address him as “lordship” or “Milord”, and refusing to let ushers pull his
chair for him.
A
lawyer who went to see Justice Muralidhar preside in court on his last day in
the Delhi HC says, “He is simply incorruptible, not just as a judge but as a
human being.”
When
asked to point out one negative, a lawyer who often appeared in cases before
Justice Muralidhar laughs, “Yes, if I were a lawyer for a crook and had to
appear before him, I would hate him. When he thinks you are wrong, especially
on a social issue, there’s little use of your arguments… because he would rule
against you.”
Incidentally,
it was by chance that the Delhi violence case came before him on Wednesday,
with both Chief Justice D N Patel and the second senior-most judge Justice G S
Sistani on leave.
But,
the last has probably not been heard of Justice Muralidhar from now to 2023,
when he retires if not elevated to the Supreme Court.