Justice Mukta Gupta – From A Prosecutor’s Desk

Indeed, prior to being appointed as a Judge, Justice Gupta appeared on behalf of the State/Govt. of NCT of Delhi as an Additional Public Prosecutor, Additional Standing Counsel and then as Standing Counsel in the Delhi High Court. She also appeared for the CBI before the High Court.

During this time, she handled several crucial and sensitive criminal cases on behalf of the prosecution such as Parliament and Red Fort shootout cases, Jessica Lal murder case, Naina Sahni murder case, Nitish Katara murder case, Priyadarshini Matoo murder case successfully. All these cases were against formidable opponents, attracted considerable media attention and the prosecution succeeded proving its case before the courts.

Justice Gupta’s reputation in criminal law travelled far and beyond the court corridors even as a lawyer. At the time of her elevation, a section of the Bar practising in criminal law was apprehensive that her performance as a Judge may get be overshadowed by prolonged appearance on behalf of the State. However, such illusions were soon shattered.

Justice Gupta established herself as a fiercely independent decision maker, whose sole aim was to decide a case based on facts and law. In the criminal law roster, she was uninfluenced by the case being set up by the prosecution or by the line up of senior lawyers on behalf of the defence.

She was extremely quick in picking up chinks in the State’s arguments, which might be missed in other courts. Needless to say, this was based on her extensive experience as a prosecutor, and her knowledge of working on the police and other investigative agencies, inside out.

Illustratively, in Dinesh Puri vs. State, it was held that documents which favour the accused, even though not relied upon by the prosecution, are required to be given to the accused under Sections 91, 233 and 243 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Justice Gupta was committed to decide the cases expeditiously and managing the court methodically. In the criminal law roster, adjudicating bail applications was topmost on priority. The causelist was clearly segregated, with bail applications listed first, followed by criminal appeals, writ petitions and criminal revisions in that order. This allowed that all the bail applications listed on the day were taken up for consideration.

In her court, one could never take for granted that a matter could be adjourned. On inspection of the court files, several times, I noticed that each file had a note prepared by the research staff in a format that gave an easy and quick snapshot of the facts and the issues. Thus, there was hardly a matter, where Justice Gupta was not aware about the facts and legal issues involved.

Justice Gupta expected that the advocates appearing for the State would not be a mere mouthpiece of the investigating agency. She consistently reminded that a status report (which, in essence, is a reply to the bail/quashing petition) has to respond to the points raised by the petitioner and a status report cannot be limited to mere reiteration of the contents of the FIR or the statements recorded by the I.O.

Several times, she would raise queries on issues/aspects which would not even have been considered by the I.O. Appearing before her required that lawyers had to apply their mind independently and ascertain if any facts and circumstances were being left out for a just and fair outcome of the matter.

For example, several times she would inquire about the analysis of scientific evidence in the form of CCTV records, call data records, and other forensic evidence need proper evaluation for a meaningful investigation.

It was expected that the prosecutor have all the relevant details available quickly to provide meaningful assistance to the court and not to consider litigation as adversarial. It was imperative to be fully prepared and be ready to argue the entire criminal appeal, even if a miscellaneous application for suspension of sentence was listed.

Justice Gupta also gave remarkable judgments on intellectual property rights and arbitration law. In the long drawn saga between Amazon.com NV Investment Holdings LLC and Reliance Retail Ventures Limited, she was the first one to hold that an award given by the SIAC emergency arbitrator had legal status in India.

In Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. vs. Rajesh Bansal, local manufacturers of DVD players were held liable for infringing Philip’s patents, which were claimed as Standard Essential Patents. This was the first post trial judgment on Standard Essential Patents in India.

In Astrazeneca v. Emcure and Astrazeneca v. MSN Labs, it was held that even though a product may be covered by a previous genus patent, if the drug is produced and marketed under a species patent, the patentee is entitled to enforce the species patent. Justice Gupta also held that the French fashion designer Christian Louboutin’s ‘red sole’ shoes with their sky heel stiletto and red sole were well-known trademark.

Yet, she would be known for the remarkable work done by her both as a lawyer and a Judge in criminal law. The dedication of Justice Gupta in deciding the cases, is reflected from the fact that 65 judgments were delivered by benches comprising of Justice Gupta, just a day before her retirement. She was instrumental in considerably reducing the pendency of criminal appeals to be heard by a division bench, where the accused were still in custody.

On a personal note, I had the occasion of appearing before Justice Gupta extensively, in my capacity as a prosecutor for the State. When I was first assigned to appear in her court as a prosecutor, even after over a decade of experience, my knees were literally shaking.

I was not confident if I would be able to satisfactorily respond to the queries. The apprehension proved correct very soon and the first couple of weeks meant working harder than ever before as prosecutor.

A specific advice from a senior counsel, who had been a prosecutor earlier, to go through the original record of the Investigative Officer was extremely helpful. I learned the need to think beyond the obvious.

Even though I was appearing in criminal law matters, the training and learning towards preparing for each hearing, permeated across other legal areas as well and, no doubt, helped me evolve as a better lawyer.

The author is an Advocate and  former APP at the Delhi High Court. Views are personal.