Gyan Sudha Mishra is well aware of the facts of social disparity. The Jharkhand High Court chief justice recently told women at Itki village in Ranchi district, “I had opportunities and you did not. If you had similar opportunities, we would have been at par. Now you should not allow your children to suffer a similar fate.”
The country’s only woman chief justice and the senior-most woman judge has now been elevated to the Supreme Court. It means that the Supreme Court has got a woman judge after a gap of almost four years, with Justice Ruma Pal having retired in June 2006.
Mishra is a second generation judge. Her father, the late Satish Chandra Mishra, was chief justice of the Patna High Court between 1968 and 1970. Although she was born and raised in Patna, Gyan Sudha is not new to the capital. She was based in Delhi for almost two decades, even working on some cases with her father, which saw her elevated to the Patna High Court in 1994.
Justice Mishra is very familiar with Delhi and knows almost every nook and corner of the apex court. As a practising lawyer, she has worked with leading legal luminaries like Ram Jethmalani, Soli Sorabjee, P P Rao and Kapil Sibal.
Married to a metallurgical engineer, she has successfully juggled professional duties with family responsibilities. Sources close to her family recall how she managed to find time to shuttle between Jaipur and Delhi in her 14 years as a judge of the Rajasthan High Court to meet her family in Delhi.
Her husband, an introvert, is extremely proud of her numerous achievements, as indeed are her three career-oriented daughters. Her first-born holds an MBA from a US business school and is also a law graduate. Her second daughter is a software engineer set to join Columbia University for an MS in computer science. The youngest is enrolled in a five-year law course in Pune.
Justice Mishra’s long years in the profession has brought varied experience. For instance, during her stint in Rajasthan, where she also held the post of executive chairperson of the Rajasthan State Legal Services Authority, she focused on several social concerns. Grassroots activists recall how fiercely she opposed child marriage, female foeticide and the trafficking of girls.
During a dinner in Ranchi early this year, I remember talking to Justice Mishra about the negligible representation of women on the Bench in the higher judiciary and the plight of qualified lawyers working out of suffocating, matchbox sized chambers in the subordinate courts. She heard me out with great interest. She also observed that being a judge called for a lot of hard work and that being a lawyer translated into working like a machine.
It’s this ability to listen, observe and understand people, coupled with inspiring influences at home in Patna, a city she calls her janambhumi (birthplace) and partly her karmabhumi, that have propelled her into the spotlight. Born into a large family, she grew up in an enabling environment, with her father and late brother, Shilesh Chandra Mishra, being role models. Her brother was a promising senior advocate of the Patna High Court.
Justice Mishra studied at Carmel Convent High School and later went to Patna Women’s College. She got her graduate degree in law and postgraduate degree in political science from Patna University. Armed with the knowledge of jurisprudence and political science, she moved to Delhi in 1973 where she got a chance to work with B P Singh, later elevated to the Supreme Court. The following year she cleared her advocate-on-record examination after which she began practising with her father. Among her innumerable achievements, Justice Mishra clearly remembers representing India at the International Women Judges Conference in Ottawa, Canada, in 1998.
Reading reams of legal papers may be an indispensable requirement, but Justice Mishra is also known for her literary taste. Her family says she is a voracious reader, and sometimes sits up late into the night reading.
A fine legal mind, Justice Gyan Sudha Mishra has always been a trailblazer. Her elevation to the Supreme Court will serve to inspire a new generation of young women aspiring to make a mark in the legal profession.
© Women’s Feature Service