Manjula Chellur to head Bombay HC

Justice Manjula Chellur from Karnataka will take over as the new chief justice of the Bombay High Court.

Justice Manjula, 61, is currently the chief justice of the Calcutta High Court. She became the first woman to head the Calcutta High Court on August 5, 2014.

Born in Ballari in 1955, she received BA degree from Allum Sumangalamma Women’s College, Ballari, and joined Renukacharya Law College, Bengaluru. She obtained her LLB degree in the year 1977.

In 1978, she enrolled as an advocate and was the first woman advocate to practise in Ballari. She also served as a legal advisor for several banks, agro industries, the KEB, KMF and APMC. She has handled several key civil and criminal cases. She joined the Karnataka Judicial Service as District Judge in 1988, got fellowship on Gender and Law in 1997 to study at Warwick University in England.

Appointed as Additional Judge of the High Court of Karnataka, she became the first woman judge in the state in 2000. Later, she was the president of the Karnataka Judicial Academy and also the executive chairperson of the Karnataka State Legal Services Authority.

On her transfer to the Kerala High Court, she assumed charge as the acting chief justice. She became the chief justice of the Kerala High Court in 2012 and took charge as the chief justice of Calcutta High Court in 2014.