Delhi HC judge pronounces 65 judgments on last working day before demitting office

The division bench comprising Justice Gupta and Justice Anish Dayal in its 60-page judgment upheld the decision of the trial court observing that “what had happened to the victim after his arrest/abduction by the accused persons was within the special knowledge of the accused persons and having not provided believable explanation, the court was right in drawing the presumption that the police was responsible for his abduction, illegal detention and death”.

In another significant decision, the same division bench commuted the death sentence awarded to a man by the trial court in 2020, convicting and sentencing him for kidnapping and murdering a 12-year-old boy in 2009, observing that the case did not fall in the category of “rarest of rare cases”. The

In yet another decision, a bench comprising Justice Gupta and Justice Poonam A Bamba directed the state of Delhi to ensure that a sufficient number of “short and long stay homes” are available for people with mental illness who do not require regular hospitalisation and who have no homes to go back to live in a safe, congenial and pleasant environment.

The bench underscored that “it is the bounden duty of the State to take care of the life of all its citizen” while modifying a woman’s conviction order from murder to culpable homicide not amounting to murder and further modifying her sentence to imprisonment for a period of 12 years. The woman was convicted by the trial court for the murder of her husband as well as inflicting knife wounds on her husband’s daughter from his first marriage and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2010. During the course of the trial, the woman was diagnosed with schizophrenia and has been undergoing treatment at the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences since 2009.

Justice Gupta in her farewell address on June 2 had said that “judges while granting relief don’t do charity” and that it is the “right of the litigant which the court recognises”.

Born on June 28, 1961, Justice Gupta completed her schooling from Montfort School. After completing graduation in BSc Zoology Hons. from Hindu College, Delhi University, in 1980, she completed her LLB from Campus Law Centre in 1983. She enrolled with the Delhi Bar Council as an advocate in 1984. She was appointed as the additional public prosecutor in Delhi High Court in January 1993 and thereafter, the standing counsel (criminal) for the government of NCT of Delhi in the high court in August 2001.

Justice Gupta, as a lawyer, conducted many criminal cases, including the Parliament and Red Fort shootout, the Priyadarshini Mattoo case and the Jessica Lal murder case in the high court and Supreme Court, to name a few. She was also appointed as the CBI counsel. She was elevated as an additional judge of the high court in October 2009 and as a permanent judge on May 29, 2014.