‘What is our loss is Manipur’s gain’: Delhi HC bids farewell to Justice Siddharth Mridul

The judge also remembered his late father, senior advocate Pushp Raj Mridul, a former judge of the Bombay High Court who resigned and moved to Delhi in 1977 to practice in the apex court, for instilling in him “kindness, compassion, and zeal to serve humanity”.

Justice Mridul said the bar and the bench are the two wheels of the administration of justice which have always worked together in Delhi to secure for the people of the country liberty, equality and justice. He said his personal belief aligns with the philosophy of ‘Antyodaya’, stating that “all of us seek to attain is to ensure the welfare and well-being of the lowest social and economic denominator”.

Reminiscing about his time spent in courts around the city, including the Supreme Court, the judge said he would miss the “beautiful city of Delhi”.

Speaking at Justice Mridul’s farewell reference, Delhi High Court Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma said that though the judge’s absence will leave a void in the high court, “what is our loss is Manipur’s gain”.

Echoing the same sentiment, and in the background of the current situation in the state, Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma said “something in his heart” tells him that Justice Mridul’s arrival will bring a semblance of peace in Manipur.

Justice Mridul, the senior-most ‘puisne’ judge in the HC, was elevated as an additional judge in 2008 and thereafter became a permanent judge in 2009. In the HC, he was presiding over a roster of cases in a division bench comprising habeas corpus and preventive detention matters, criminal contempt pleas, and criminal appeals among others.

Just last week Justice Mridul, while sitting in a division bench, had commuted the death sentence of Ariz Khan, one of the accused in the 2008 Batla House shootout case, to life imprisonment. The judge was also part of the bench that rejected the bail plea of Umar Khalid last year in the 2020 Delhi riots larger conspiracy case.