Madras High Court bids farewell to Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana

She holds the distinction of having led the court’s first all-women Full Bench

The Madras High Court on Friday bid farewell to Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana on account of her upcoming retirement from service on Sunday.

Elevated to the Bench on October 25, 2013, she holds the distinction of having led the court’s fist all-women Full Bench (comprising three judges) with Justices Anita Sumanth and P.T. Asha in March 2020 to decide a case related to the applicability of the Employees State Insurance Act on unaided educational institutions.

She thanked incumbent Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari, former Chief Justice Amareshwar Pratap Sahi, who gave her the opportunity to lead the all-women Full Bench, former Chief Justice Sanjay Prakash Kaul (now a Supreme Court judge) with whom she delivered a verdict against banning Tamil novel Madhorubagan in 2016, former Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee, the sitting judges of the court and her senior lawyer T.R. Rajagopalan.

In his farewell address, Advocate General R. Shunmugasundaram said the judge was born on February 28, 1960 to an IAS officer. She hails from Mannargudi in Tiruvarur district and had completed her graduation in English literature from SDNB Vaishnav College in Chennai before obtaining her law degree from the Madras Government Law College in 1985. She had an extensive practice for about 28 years at the Bar before becoming a judge in 2013.

She was also highly interested in sports. She was an athlete and also the captain of the State hockey team. The judge was also a district cricket player. Even now, she had been actively participating in many car rallies. Sitting along with Justice Kaul in 2015, she had ordered appointment of transgender candidate K. Prithika Yashini as a sub-inspector of police, the A-G recalled.

Mr. Shunmugasundaram also stated that she had disposed of 38,206 cases in her tenure spanning over 8 years and 4 months. The A-G reminded the gathering about the view of Chief Justice of N.V. Ramana that 50% of reservation for women in the judiciary is a matter of right and not charity. He hoped that the Madras High Court would get more women judges in the future.