After taking his oath of office at Raj Bhavan in Gandhinagar in executive, legislative, and judiciary members, Chief Justice Aravind Kumar assumed command of the Gujarat High Court on Wednesday. Justice Kumar took the oath of office from Gujarat Governor Acharya Devvrat.
Justice Kumar (59), the 27th Chief Justice of the High Court, began his legal career in 1987 and practised in Karnataka civil courts, magistrate courts, appellate tribunals, and the High Court. In 1999, he was appointed to the High Court as an Additional Central Government Standing Counsel, and in 2002, he was assigned to the Regional Direct Taxes Advisory Committee.
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In 2005, he was appointed as the Assistant Solicitor General of India after serving as the Standing Counsel for the Income Tax Department. Justice Kumar was appointed to the High Court as an Additional Judge in 2009, and by 2012, he had been appointed as a permanent judge. During the second wave, he was a member of a division bench led by then-Chairman of the Karnataka High Court, Abhay Oka, that presided on Covid-19 problems.
In 2017, Justice Kumar presided over a petition filed by then-Karnataka BJP chief and former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa, seeking the quashing of anti-corruption complaints filed by the Anti-Corruption Bureau dating back to 2007 under the provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act, for charges relating to the dropping of land acquisition.
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The court had accepted Yedyurappa’s interim request for the inquiry to be halted. Justices M R Shah and Bela Trivedi of the Supreme Court, Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, justices of the High Court, members of the Bar, and Gujarat Chief Secretary Pankaj Kumar were also present at the oath-taking event.
