Justice S. Muralidhar

Dr Justice S. Muralidhar is a judge who, sitting in the Delhi High Court with Justice Vinod Goel, wrote the judgment of 17 December 2018 in State through CBI v. Sajjan Kumar. The Delhi High Court's farewell speech on his transfer, on 5 March 2020, says he was born on 8 August 1961, studied chemistry at Vivekananda College, Chennai, and law at the University of Madras, enrolled as an advocate on 12 September 1984, moved his practice to Delhi in July 1987, was awarded a doctorate in 2003 for work on legal aid and the criminal justice system, and became an additional judge of the Delhi High Court on 29 May 2006 and a permanent judge on 29 August 2007.

The judgment of 17 December 2018

• It decided the CBI's appeal against the trial court's acquittal of Sajjan Kumar on 30 April 2013. The case concerned the killing of five Sikhs in Raj Nagar Part I, Palam Colony, in South West Delhi on 1 and 2 November 1984 and the burning of a gurdwara in Raj Nagar Part II. The trial court had convicted five other accused.
• On 17 December 2018 the bench reversed the acquittal and convicted Sajjan Kumar of criminal conspiracy and abetment of murder, among other offences, sentencing him to imprisonment for life, "i.e. the remainder of his natural life". It affirmed the convictions of the five others and added a conviction for criminal conspiracy.
• The judgment says the accused were brought to justice "primarily on account of the courage and perseverance of three eyewitnesses": Jagdish Kaur, whose husband, son and three cousins were the five killed; Jagsher Singh; and Nirpreet Kaur.
• It says that the mass killings of Sikhs in Delhi and elsewhere in November 1984 "were in fact" crimes against humanity, and that neither crimes against humanity nor genocide "is part of our domestic law of crime", a loophole that "needs to be addressed urgently".

Later: he was transferred to the Punjab and Haryana High Court in March 2020, and according to Wikipedia was sworn in as Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court on 4 January 2021. OdishaBytes reported in August 2023 that he had retired as Chief Justice after more than two years and seven months in the post, and the Supreme Court designated him a senior advocate that October.

What he is remembered for: in the history of 1984, for the judgment that reversed the acquittal of a former Member of Parliament and put in a court's words that the killings were crimes against humanity.