Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai is former judge of the Supreme Court of India.[1]
She served as a Judge of Supreme Court of India from 13 September 2011 to 29 October 2014. Now, she has been appointed as Chairperson of the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity and assumed the charge on 1 December 2014.
Early life
She was born on 30 October 1949 to criminal lawyer S. G. Samant. Desai completed her Bachelor of Arts from the Elphinstone College in 1970 and Bachelor of Laws from the Government Law College, Bombay in 1973.
Judicial career
Her father Shri S.G. Samant who was an eminent criminal lawyer. She started her legal career on July 30, 1973 as a junior of Justice Pratap.[2]
Desai was appointed as a Government Pleader in 1979, post which as Special Public Prosecutor for preventive detention matters in 1986 and then elevated to the Bench of Bombay High Court on April 15, 1996.[3]
Desai took charge as chairperson of Appellate Tribunal for Electricity on December 1, 2014 in New Delhi.[4] Before this she served as a judge of Bombay High Court from 1996 till 2011, after which she was promoted as a judge of the Supreme Court of India.[5]
Notable judgements
On 8 May 2012, the Supreme Court bench composed of Ranjana Desai and Altamas Kabir ordered the government to end the Haj subsidy by 2022.[6][7] On 27 September 2013, in a landmark judgement, a three-judge bench consisting of the Chief JusticeP Sathasivam and Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai and Justice Ranjan Gogoi of the Supreme Court of India ruled that the right to register a "none of the above" vote in elections should apply. The court said that Negative voting would lead to systemic change in polls and political parties will be forced to project clean candidates.[8] The Election Commission has said that the judgement will be implemented immediately.[9][10]
