With 65 decisions on her last day, Justice Mukta Gupta bids farewell to Delhi HC

On her last day before retiring as a judge, Justice Mukta Gupta of the Delhi High Court pronounced 65 verdicts, creating a record of sorts.

Some of her pronouncements were on cases of murder, rape and commutation of the death penalty of a prisoner. Justice Gupta retires on June 27 after serving as a high court judge for 14 years.

Justice Gupta was appointed Additional Public Prosecutor in the Delhi High Court in 1993 and as the Standing Counsel (Criminal) for the Delhi government in 2001. During the course of her career, she decided some prominent cases, including the Parliament and Red Fort shootouts, and the Jessica Lal, Naina Sahni and Nitish Katara cases, both in the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court.

On 23 October 2009, Justice Gupta was promoted to the position of high court judge, while on 29 May 2014, she became a permanent justice of the high court. She retires today as the sixth seniormost judge of the Delhi High Court. Currently, Justice Gupta is also the only woman among the 10 seniormost justices of the High Court.  

Since June last year, Justice Gupta has authored, either alone or as part of a bench, over 220 verdicts.

“After having worked for 39 years and untiringly for the last 23 years… On 27 June 2023, when I demit office, I don't propose to unbuckle my shoes. In my fourth innings, I still propose to work but at a slower pace and spend [the] rest of my time with my grandchildren,” the judge said during her farewell speech, as per a report by LiveLaw.