Sanjay Kishan Kaul is currently the Most senior judge of Supreme Court of India. He is former Chief Justice of Madras High Court and Punjab and Haryana High Court and Former Judge of Delhi High Court. He has also served as acting chief justice of Delhi High Court.
Sanjay Kishan Kaul was born on 26 December 1958 to a Kashmiri Hindu Brahmin family. Kaul hails from the family of the Dattatreya Kauls of Srinagar. His great-great-grandfather, Raja Suraj Kishan Kaul, was the Revenue minister in the Regency council of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. His great-grandfather, Sir Daya Kishan Kaul, was a statesman and diplomat who served as the finance minister of Jammu & Kashmir state. His grandfather, Raja Upinder Kishen Kaul, had a distinguished career in public service. Kaul’s brother, Neeraj Kishan Kaul, was also a judge of the Delhi High court, having been appointed in the summer of 2009.
During his 19-year career, he handled mainly commercial, civil & writ matters in Delhi high court & Supreme court of India. As a judge Kaul was appointed additional judge of Delhi high court on 3 May 2001, and was made a permanent judge in 2003. He was also the acting chief justice of Delhi high court in September 2012.He became Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court in June 2013.
The Chancellor of TNDALU is the chief justice of Madras high court. Hence he served as the chancellor of TNDALU and he has also visited the college and addressed the students.
Notable Judgments
2008 Judgement as Delhi HC Judge, where Kaul dismissed the charges levied against M F Husain for his painting of a lady later termed as ‘Bharat Mata’, accusing him of obscenity. Upholding free speech and expression, Kaul expressed agreement with Husain’s contention that there was no deliberate intention on his part to hurt anybody’s religious feeling as the figure actually represented an “anthropomorphic depiction of a nation” in the form of a distressed woman.
