WEB DESK
In a historic move the Supreme Court Collegium has recommended the elevation of senior advocate Saurabh Kirpal, a openly homosexual member of the judiciary to the bench as a judge of the Delhi High Court.
A statement issued by the top court said a decision in this regard was taken during a meeting of the Collegium on November 11.
If appointed, Kirpal will be India’s first openly gay judge.
In March of this year, the then Chief Justice of India, SA Bobde, asked the central government to clear its stance on the elevation of Saurabh Kirpal as a judge of the Delhi HC.
This was reportedly the fourth time a final decision on Kirpal’s elevation was deferred ever since his name was unanimously recommended by the Delhi HC Collegium in October 2017.
A graduate of Delhi’s St Stephens College, Saurabh Kirpal pursued his undergraduate degree in law from Oxford University followed by a master’s degree from Cambridge University.
He practised in the Supreme Court of India for over two decades after a brief stint with the United Nations in Geneva.
Saurabh Kirpal was the lawyer for petitioners in the case of Navtej Singh Johor vs Union of India that led to a constitution bench of the Supreme Court scrapping Section 377 in September 2018.
In an interview to ThePrint last year, Kirpal had said that he believed his sexual orientation was probably the reason the SC Collegium had deferred a decision on his elevation to the High Court.Live TV