The first woman Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court, Manjula Chellur, will be the new Chief Justice of Mumbai High Court, according to an official announcement yesterday.
She will become only the second woman chief justice in the 154-year-old history of Mumbai High Court which was inaugurated on August 14, 1862 and will celebrate its 155th anniversary on Sunday.
Chief Justice Chellur, 60, will take charge of her new assignment later this month.
Mumbai High Court has three benches — in Aurangabad, Nagpur and Goa besides jurisdiction over the Union Territories of Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu.
Justice Sujata Manohar created history by becoming the first woman Chief Justice of Mumbai High Court in 1994.
She was later elevated to the Supreme Court.
Born on December 5, 1955 at Bellary in Karnataka, Chief Justice Chellur is the daughter of C Bheemappa Chetty and Rangamma Chetty.
After acquiring a degree in Arts from Allum Sumangalamma Womens College in her hometown, she joined the Renukacharya Law College in Bangalore (now Bengaluru) and obtained her LL B degree in 1977.
She visited the Crown Court at Hurham, UK, during her stay in England for a year.
She launched her legal career as the first woman advocate to practice in Bellary in August 1978.
In April 1988, she joined the Karnataka Judicial Service as a District Judge and got a fellowship on Gender & Law in 1997 at Warwick University, UK.
She was appointed the first woman judge of the Karnataka High Court in February 2000 and became a permanent judge in August that year.
In between, Justice Chellur served as executive chairperson of the Karnataka State Legal Services Authority, worked for the welfare of transgenders and arranged seminars throughout the state.
Later, she was transferred to the Kerala High Court where she became the Chief Justice in September 2012.
Chief Justice Chellur became the 37th and first ever woman Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court in August 2014.
During her legal career, she served as a legal advisor to several banks, agro-industries and other organisations besides handling several important cases both on civil and criminal sides.
Recognising her outstanding contributions in the field of law, the Karnataka State Women’s University, Bijapur, honoured her with an honorary Doctorate in March 2013.