Justice Pushpa Ganediwala Of Bombay High Court Resigns

Justice Pushpa Ganediwala, judge of the Bombay High Court (Nagpur Bench) has resigned.

She was an additional judge of the High Court, whose extended tenure was set to expire on February 12, as the Supreme Court collegium did not recommend the extension of her term. 

She became a district judge in 2007 and was elevated as an additional judge of the Bombay High Court on February 13, 2019, for a term of two years. In January 2021, Justice Ganediwala delivered two judgments relating to child sex abuse, which attracted widespread criticism for taking the proposition that direct skin to skin contact was necessary for constituting the offence of sexual assault under the POCSO Act.  Following the controversy, the Supreme Court collegium revoked the recommendation made by it on January 20 to make her a permanent judge of the Bombay High Court.

A month later, in February 2021, the Collegium recommended the extension of her term as an additional judge for one more year, instead of proposing to make her a permanent judge.

Her controversial judgments were overruled by the Supreme Court last year in an appeal filed by the Attorney General for India. In a verdict delivered in November 2021, a 3-judge bench of the Supreme Court held that what mattered for the offence of sexual assault was "sexual intent" with which the contact was made.