Bengaluru’s Indu first woman lawyer to become SC judge: 5 things you need to know about her

New Delhi, Apr 26: The government is learnt to have cleared the appointment of senior advocate Indu Malhotraas a judge of the Supreme Court, sources in the Law Ministry said today.

She will be the first woman judge to be appointed to the top post directly from the bar.

With this development, the government has decided to put on hold the elevation of Justice K M Joseph, who heads the Uttarakhand High Court.

On January 22, the apex court collegium's file recommending the elevation of Justice Joseph and Malhotra reached the Law Ministry.

After processing the file in the first week of February, the recommendations were kept in abeyance as the government wanted to elevate only Malhotra.

But now, the government has went ahead with the appointment of Malhotra and kept on hold the elevation of Justice Joseph.

The government feels that while recommending the name of Justice Joseph, the collegium has disregarded seniority and regional representation.

He is 42nd in the seniority list of 669 high court judges.

Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad would now write to Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra about its decision to appoint only Malhotra, the sources added.

Here a few facts about Indu Malhotra.

1. She was born in Bengaluru as the youngest child of senior Supreme Court advocate late Om Prakash Malhotra.  She did her graduation and masters in Political Science from Lady Shri Ram College in Delhi University. Her Bachelor of Law was also from Delhi University.

2. She enrolled in Delhi Bar Council in 1983. She qualified the Advocate-on-Records in the Supreme Court exam with a first rank in 1988. She was appointed as the Standing Counsel for the state of Haryana in Supreme Court and represented various government bodies such as SEBI, CSIR, DDA and others in the apex court.

3. After 30 years, Indu Malhotra became the second woman to be designated as Senior Advocate in Supreme Court in 2007. Justice Leila Seth was first woman senior advocate.

4. She specialised the arbitration law and has appeared in several commercial arbitrations around the world.

5. Malhotra has written a book titled "Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996", which is considered as a classic in the law of arbitration.