Meet 3 new judges transferred to Delhi High Court

Here’s looking at the career trajectory and key cases these judges have adjudicated in the recent past.

1. Justice Dinesh Mehta

Justice Mehta, the former judge of the Rajasthan High Court, enrolled in 1992, has advised and appeared for various matters relating to Taxation, Arbitration, Banking Laws, Company Laws, Electricity Laws, Environment Laws, Insurance Laws, Agrarian Laws, Municipal Laws.

The Rajasthan High Court has recently bid farewell to Justice Mehta, where they lauded his “legal acumen and his boldness with clarity in his voice”.

They also called him a “model of judicial transparency” for his colleagues who used to “maintain an aura of decorum and courtesy,” pointing out that he has decided “around 72,819 cases”.

“His judgments often begin with succinct summaries and end with actionable directions, making them accessible to both legal professionals and laypersons,” a judge said at the ceremony.

It was Justice Mehta, who in 2017, directed the Rajasthan police department to appoint Ganga Kumari, a transwoman, as a constable, after officials denied her a post due to her gender and reported lack of clarity of rules in 2015.

Calling it a case of “gender bias”, Justice Mehta asked the force to appoint Kumari within six weeks from the date of the order along with the notional benefits from year 2015.

Being a third-generation lawyer, Justice Mehta has also previously appeared for different entities, including the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), Hindustan Zinc Limited, Rajasthan Financial Corporation (RFC), Security and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

He was also appointed as panel lawyer for Oriental Insurance Company Limited, United India Insurance Company Limited, and Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI), and later he served as panel lawyer for Indira Gandhi Nahar Pariyojana from 1999 to 2003.

2. Justice Avneesh Jhingan

Hailing from a family of lawyers, Justice Jhingan joined the Delhi High Court collegium after concluding his tenure with the Rajasthan High Court.

After enrolling with the Punjab and Haryana Bar Council in 1992, Justice Jhingan began his career as a lawyer in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, primarily taking civil and tax related matters.

He was then elected as the Chief Patron of the Punjab Tax Bar Association and took oath as an Additional Judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 2017, following which he became a permanent judge.

He then became a Rajasthan High Court judge in 2023.

At the event marking his farewell in the Rajasthan High Court, he was credited as someone who was defined by “precision, discipline, and an unwavering devotion to judicial duty” and has concluded around 4,127 judgments in toto.

“He is a man of many dimensions, an avid sportsman, a devoted family man, and a lover of music and tradition,” one of the attendees shared.

During his tenure at the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 2021, Justice Jhingan while hearing a runway couple’s plea for protection after they received no help from police, suggested safe houses should be made available in each district of Punjab, Haryana, as well as in UT Chandigarh for the protection of couples who marry against the wishes of their families.

He said, “A number of such petitions are being filed by couples who performed marriage against the wishes of their parents and relatives. This court is also being approached by couples stating to be in a live-in relationship…The non-acceptability of inter-caste marriage is a social problem which needs to be dealt at multifarious levels. The inter-caste is not the only reason for non-acceptability of marriage, there are numerous other socio-economic reasons…”

3. Justice Chandrasekharan Sudha

Justice Sudha started her career as an lawyer in 1989 and practiced in the district court, Thiruvananthapuram.

She entered judicial service after securing the first rank in the Kerala Judicial Service examination. In the years that followed, she served in multiple capacities, including Munsiff-Magistrate and Assistant Sessions Judge.

Her career also witnessed some significant administrative roles between 2010 and 2011, when she served as Registrar of the Cyber Appellate Tribunal in New Delhi and as Assistant Controller of Investigation in the Office of the Controller of Certifying Authority, Ministry of Communication & IT. In 2012, she was promoted to District and Sessions Judge and worked as Additional District & Sessions Judge in Kollam.

Justice Sudha was later appointed as Registrar of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal, Delhi in 2017 after her deputation as Registrar, Competition Appellate Tribunal in 2013.

She was sworn in as an Additional Judge of the High Court of Kerala in 2021, where she was later appointed as a Permanent Judge in 2023.

Justice Sudha was part of the Kerala High Court bench, which about a year ago, directed the special investigation team formed in the aftermath of the Hema Committee report to treat the statements given to the panel as information about cognisable offences.

Justice Hema Committee report looked into the problems faced by women working in the Malayalam film industry and found instances of sexual harassment, lack of basic facilities like women’s toilets, gender bias and discrimination, disparity in remuneration, and the absence of a legally constituted authority to address their problems.

While the addition of these judges aims at strengthening numbers, much clamour surrounded the transfers of the two Delhi High Court judges.

On October 27, senior advocate and Delhi High Bar Association president N Hariharan during the farewell of the outgoing judges, Justices Arun Monga and Tara Vitasta Ganju, flagged concerns over the frequency of judicial transfers.

“Over the last couple of years, we have witnessed transfers of judges to and from Delhi High Court. Transfers are of course contemplated by the constitution. Yet when their frequency, scale and pattern begin to alter the composition of a court, they raise concerns that go beyond individual cases.”

Hariharan stressed the appointments and transfers must be carried out in a manner that “strengthens” and not “undermines” the constitutional scheme.

“We must remind ourselves that independence requires not only insulation from external pressures but also internal transparency that commands public confidence. Our association has raised these concerns in appropriate fora and will continue to do so. But it is not a question of confrontation between the bench and the bar. It is a question of dialogue of vigilance and of preserving institutional trust on which the judiciary rests,” he added.