KOCHI: Justice KK Usha was the first woman to join the High Court judiciary from the bar and to become the Chief Justice of Kerala High Court.She began her distinguished career when she enrolled as an advocate in 1961. After her marriage with Justice K Sukumaran, she joined Menon & Pai, one of the premier law firms in Kochi, where her husband was a senior lawyer, in the early 1960s.
Justice Usha was appointed government pleader in Kerala HC in 1979. She served as a judge from 1991 to 2000. And when she was appointed Chief Justice of the Kerala HC in 2000, Justice Usha became the first woman to be elevated to the HC from the Bar and become a Chief Justice. Before her elevation as a judge, Justice Sukumaran moved to Bombay High Court as a judge.
Post-retirement, Justice Usha was made president of the New Delhi-headquartered Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal and she served in that capacity from 2001 to 2004. In 1975, Justice Usha had represented the country at the International Convention of the International Federation of Women Lawyers in Hamburg, in then West Germany.
She was India’s representative to the UN’s Joint Seminar on ‘Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination as regards women’, organised by the International Federation of Women Lawyers and the International Federation of Women of Legal Careers. She was a member and president of the University Women’s Association. She was closely involved with the activities of ‘Sree Narayana Sevika Samajam’, an orphanage and home for destitute women.
Loved ones
Justice Usha is survived by husband Justice Sukumaran, daughters Lakshmi Gopal Raj and Karthika Sukumaran (lawyer, Kerala HC), and sons-in-law, Gopal Raj and K Sabarinath.