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Who is Saurabh Kirpal ?
Saurabh Kirpal is a senior advocate who has been recommended by the collegium of the Supreme Court of India to be elevated as the judge of Delhi High Court. Once approved by the Central government, Kirpal would become India's first openly gay judge, a milestone for LGBTQ rights in India.
Judges in India are appointed after the collegium makes recommendations followed by the formal approval of the central government.
The government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to approve his name soon. Kirpal could have been appointed earlier in 2018, but the decision was deferred by the collegium at least thrice. The government, after a background check, had flagged Kirpal's partner a "potential security risk" because of his foreign origin. However, Kirpal dismissed the claim and said he believed it was rather his sexual orientation that was coming in the way of his appointment, according to media reports.
Kirpal, who is the son of India's former chief justice B N Kirpal, studied physics at Delhi's St. Stephens College. He, then, went to Oxford University on scholarship to study law and later earned a master's degree from Cambridge University. He worked with the United Nations in Geneva for a brief period before coming back to India in the 1990s. Since he returned to India, he has been practicing in the top court and has argued in several important cases, most of which were constitutional, commercial, civil, and criminal in nature. He also worked as a junior advocate in the chamber of former attorney general Mukul Rohatgi. He was elevated as a senior advocate in March 2021 after a unanimous decision of Delhi High Court's 31 judges.
Kirpal has played a key role in the fight for LGBTQ rights in India. He represented two key petitioners in a case on which the top court gave a landmark verdict in 2018 that decriminalised gay sex. A lot has yet to change for the LGBTQ population in India, but the landmark verdict of 2018 has set the ball rolling for a more inclusive country and Kirpal's appointment is a move in the right direction.
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