By Sanjay Raman Sinha
Justice Hima Kohli retired from the Supreme Court on September 1, 2024, after a three-year fruitful tenure. She was ninth in seniority. Her retirement has not only reduced the number of judges from the sanctioned strength of 34 to 33, but the number of women judges in the apex court is now also reduced to two, namely, Justices BV Nagarathna and Bela M Trivedi.
The moment of appointment of Justice Kohli was epochal. She was appointed with the above two judges, and with sitting judge Justice Indira Banerjee, the four women judges formed the highest numerical strength of women judges in the Supreme Court at any time.
Justice Kohli’s tenure was marked by landmark judgments and progressive rulings. She was a part of the Constitution benches that heard important cases. Her commitment to women’s causes was outstanding. At her farewell function, Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud said: “Hima Kohli is not only a woman judge, but she is also a staunch defender of women’s rights.”
Justice Kohli was on the bench which heard the plea for same-sex marriage and declined to grant legal sanction. She also sat on the bench which rebuked Patanjali Ayurveda for publishing misleading advertisements. The NCT Delhi civil service matter and the Shiv Sena dispute were also heard by her on the bench.
She is most remembered in recent times for her strict stand on Patanjali misleading medical advertisements. (Indian Medical Assn vs Union of India). The division bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Ahsanuddin Amanullah, while closing the long-drawn-out contempt proceedings against Baba Ramdev and Patanjali Managing Director Acharya Balkrishna, made the duo do umpteen rounds of the Court and gave them an earful of stinging public reprimand before accepting their unqualified apology.
Justice Kohli was part of a family which experienced the pains of Partition. Her father was from Jalandhar and had a business-class family background. They migrated to Delhi during the Partition and made a success of their lives after much struggle.
Born on September 2, 1959, in Delhi, she did her schooling at St. Thomas School, New Delhi, and graduated in history from St. Stephens College in first division, post graduated in history in the first division and then joined LLB course at the Law faculty, Campus Law Centre, University of Delhi, in 1984. She worked with Justice Vijender Jain, who went on to become the chief justice of the Punjab Haryana High Court.
Justice Jain, who is now the former chief justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, recounts: “Hima joined me in 1986 as junior to me when YK Sabharwal was elevated to the bench of the Delhi High Court. For a woman to be a practicing lawyer in a man-dominated profession is not an easy task. But her devotion and commitment was unparalleled. She worked late with me. When her mother complained, I asked her to come and go early, which she declined, and chose to work late with her assignments. This was her devotion and commitment to law. Her elevation as a judge and chief justice of the Telangana High Court, and finally to the Supreme Court, apart from being her success story, became an inspiration for women lawyers of the country.”
Justice Kohli was the Standing Counsel and Legal Advisor of the New Delhi Municipal Council in the Delhi High Court from 1999 to 2004. Thereafter, she got enrolled as an advocate with the Bar Council of Delhi in the same year. She was appointed as an Additional Judge of the Delhi High Court on May 29, 2006, and took oath as a permanent judge on August 29, 2007.
During her tenure as a judge in the Delhi High Court, she wrote significant judgments, including protecting the identity of the accused juveniles. In Mukesh Yadav vs Union of India and Ors, she wrote that juvenile’s identity needs not be disclosed at any step of the legal proceedings.
Justice Kohli knew the struggles of her gender in the legal profession. She was one of them who must have experienced them first hand, and she tellingly said in one point of time: “However good a woman lawyer may be at her work, she has to work doubly hard to make a mark.”
Apart from performing her official duties as a judge, she took interest in promoting mediation as an alternative dispute resolution forum. She was an avid advocate of environmental protection and batted for the role of the judiciary in the preservation of the ecology and environment and the role of family courts in resolving family disputes. On January 7, 2021, Justice Kohli was sworn-in as the chief justice of High Court for the State of Telangana, making her the first woman to do so.
She was appointed as Chancellor of National Academy of Legal Studies and Research (NALSAR) University of Law, Hyderabad. On August 31, 2021, she was appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court. Herein she dealt with a wide variety of cases. She wrote around 40 verdicts of which 16 cases were criminal matters. The rest was in the categories of service, narcotics, arbitration, civil, defence, property and family.
It would be in context to mention the sensitive verdict delivered In Manisha Priyadarshini vs Aurobindo College, 2020 by a division bench of Justice Hima Kohli and Asha Menon, holding that maternity leave cannot be grounds for dismissal and that it is “violative of the basic principle of equality in the eyes of law. It would also tantamount to depriving her of the protection assured under Article 21 of the Constitution of India of her right to employment and protection of her reproductive rights as a woman.”
She was appointed in the tenure of CJI Ramana alongside eight other judges: Justices AS Oka, Vikram Nath, JK Maheshwari, BV Nagarathna, CT Ravikumar, MM Sundresh, Bela M Trivedi, and PS Narasimha. Three of them are expected become the chief justice of India. Among the nine appointees, Justice Kohli had the shortest tenure. As a Supreme Court judge, Justice Kohli was part of many important benches that delivered key verdicts. The essence of her verdicts was gender justice.
In Prakasan MP vs State of Kerala, the issue was of sexual harassment at workplace. The bench of Justices AS Bopanna and Hima Kohli issued detailed instructions to ensure the implementation of the POSH law, but not before observing that: “However salutary this enactment may be, it will never succeed in providing dignity and respect that women deserve at the workplace unless and until there is strict adherence to the enforcement regime and a proactive approach by all the State and non-State actors.”
Justice Kohli is the chairperson of the Supreme Court Gender Sensitisation and Internal Complaints Committee. She has been heading the committee for the past one year, and will continue to do so. She is 62 years, unmarried and has a sister, Neelu Kohli. Justice Kohli’s approach reflected a deep understanding of the complexities of law and a balanced application of legal principles. As a votary of women’s rights, she trod a fearless path of feminine freedom.
No wonder, CJI Chandrachud paid respects to her in the farewell and said: “Justice Kohli has shown you don’t have to forsake femininity to succeed.”
Landmark verdicts involving Justice Hima Kohli
- Supriyo vs Union of India
- Supreme Court’s verdict on same-sex marriage
The five-judge Constitution bench of CJI DY Chandrachud and Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, S Ravindra Bhat, Hima Kohli and PS Narasimha wrote four opinions. All judges said in one voice that there was no fundamental right to marry and that the Supreme Court could not enter judicial legislation to read words into the Special Marriage Act and make it a gender-neutral legislation.
- Seema Chaudhary vs Union of India
- Supreme Court directed setting up of fresh selection board for granting permanent commission to woman SSC officer in Indian Navy
The division bench of CJI DY Chandrachud and Justice Hima Kohli directed that the petitioner should be considered for the grant of permanent commission afresh by reconvening a selection board.
- Subhash Desai vs Governor of Maharashtra
- Political crisis between Shiv Sena’s Eknath Shinde and Uddhav Thackeray of Maharashtra
The split between Eknath Shinde and Uddhav Thackeray factions within the Shiv Sena led to the change of the Maharashtra government in 2022. The five-judge Constitution bench of CJI DY Chandrachud and Justices MR Shah, Krishna Murari, Hima Kohli and PS Narasimha upheld the governor’s decision of inviting Shinde to form the government and refused to quash Uddhav Thackeray’s resignation as it was submitted voluntarily before the floor test.
- State (NCT of Delhi) vs Union of India
- Delhi LG versus Delhi government
The five-judge Constitution bench of CJI DY Chandrachud and Justices MR Shah, Krishna Murari, Hima Kohli and PS Narasimha upheld the Delhi government’s powers to control civil servants and day-to-day administration of the NCT of Delhi.
- Manohar Lal Sharma vs Union of India
- Pegasus spying case
The three-judge bench of then CJI NV Ramana and Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli appointed an expert committee to look into the truth or falsity of the allegations in the Pegasus spyware case.