NEW DELHI: Senior advocate
Indu Malhotra is likely to take oath as a
Supreme Court judge on Friday, with sources saying the government has cleared her appointment.
However, the name of Uttarakhand high court Chief Justice Kuttiyil Mathew Joseph, the chief bone of contention between the
SC collegium and the government, remains on hold.
The collegium, headed by CJI Dipak Misra, had created history by picking Malhotra as the first woman advocate to be recommended for appointment as an SC judge. All the women SC judges, six in all, had so far been elevated from high courts.
Malhotra, 61, became the second woman lawyer to be designated as a senior advocate by the SC in August 2007, three decades after the honour was first bestowed on
Leila Seth, who went on to become the first woman chief justice of a high court. Seth was designated as a senior advocate in 1977.
Justice Joseph headed the bench which quashed the imposition of President’s rule in Uttarakhand after the dismissal of the
Congress government led by Harish Rawat.
However, the government has not accepted the collegium’s recommendation to elevate him, the delay leading SC judge Justice
Kurian Joseph to record his lament publicly.
Malhotra has practised in Delhi for the last 35 years, mostly in the apex court. She earned a law degree from the faculty of law,
Delhi University, and started practising in 1983.
In 1988, she stood first in the tough advocate-on record test and became part of the select group of lawyers who alone can file petitions in the SC. She has authored a treatise on ‘Laws on Industrial Disputes’ and also ‘Commentary on the Law and Practice of Arbitration in India’.
Senior advocate Indu Malhotra