Gita Mittal

Justice Gita Mittal (born 9 December 1958) is a retired Indian judge.

She is the former Chief Justice of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court and the first woman judge to serve in that capacity.

She has also served as the Acting Chief Justice of Delhi High Court while she was serving as a Judge of the Delhi High Court.

Mittal was educated at Lady Irwin School in Delhi, graduating in 1975 with a focus on science.

As a school student she was a member of the Girl Guides in India, and represented the organisation internationally at several events.

She went on to obtain a Bachelor of Arts in Economics with Honours from the Lady Shriram College for Women, Delhi, in 1978, and also participated actively in athletics, acting as Sports President of the Lady Shri Ram College (1977-1978).

Mittal studied law at the Campus Law Center in Delhi, graduating with an LL.B in 1981.

Mittal practiced law in Delhi from 1981 to 2004, prior to her appointment as an Additional Judge in the Delhi High Court.

She also acted as a counsel for the Delhi Development Authority, appearing for them in a case concerning demolitions of illegal structures.

Mittal was appointed an additional judge to the Delhi High Court on 16 July 2004, and was confirmed as a permanent judge on 20 February 2006.

During her tenure as a High Court judge, she heard both civil and criminal matters.

During her tenure as a High Court Judge, Mittal served on a number of administrative and judicial committees at the Court.

She was the Chair of the Delhi High Court's Mediation and Conciliation Center, and served on committees that dealt with complaints concerning sexual harassment, working conditions, performance assessment of judges in subordinate courts, and judicial training.

Mittal also served on a committee concerning the implementation of legal guidelines that governed child witnesses in cases concerning sexual offences.

In 2011, along with Justice R. Midha she passed a significant ruling concerning the rights of transgender individuals, holding that a woman with a congenital hormonal anomaly had been unfairly discriminated against when she was prohibited from joining the Sashastra Seema Bal (a border patrol organisation) as a female constable.

As part of this, she led an initiative to establish special courtrooms for vulnerable witnesses in the Delhi High Court, with the first such courtroom being established in 2012.

In 2013, along with Justice Deepa Sharma, she held that colour-blindness could not be grounds for discrimination in the context of promotion in the Central Reserve Police Force.

In 2013, she held that Congress leader N.D. Tiwari could not be compelled to provide a blood sample against his will, in a paternity suit filed against him, although an adverse inference could be drawn from his refusal to provide the sample.

Her order was later reversed by a different High Court bench, which compelled him to provide a sample.

In 2013 she ruled that the Delhi High Court could not prohibit entry to persons who didn't have identity cards, noting that access to justice would be impeded by such a rule.

In 2014, along with Justice J.R. Midha, she dismissed an appeal filed in the Nitish Katara murder case, upholding the trial court's conviction of Vikas Yadav, the son of Uttar Pradesh politician D.P. Yadav.

On 17 May 2016, the Times of India published an article reporting that a litigant had written to the Chief Justice of India and other judges of the Supreme Court, complaining that Justice Mittal's disposal of cases was slow and constrained by her involvement in administrative work, as a result of which she allegedly did not sit in court for a sufficient period of time to hear matters, and that this had personally affected the litigant.

Times of India reported that they had verified the numbers presented by the litigant and confirmed them.

Justice Mittal's office responded, indicating that the litigant had no pending cases in her court.

The report was widely criticised by members of the Bar.

The Delhi High Court Bar Association condemned it as inaccurate and thirty-four senior advocates wrote a letter to the Times of India calling on the newspaper to issue an apology to Justice Mittal for inaccuracies in their report, and attesting to her work at the Delhi High Court in disposing of disputes.

On 31 May 2016, it was reported that the Delhi High Court had accepted an unconditional apology from Times of India for the report.

Mittal wrote a number of significant judgments as a judge at the Delhi High Court, many of which concern the conditions of service and recruitment in military and para-military forces in India.

However, in 2016, along with Justice IS Mehta, she laid down principles that courts should follow in hearing cases concerning pleas for court-ordered paternity tests.

On 14 April 2017, Mittal was appointed the Acting Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court.

In 2017, along with Justice C. Hari Shankar, she dismissed an appeal filed by retired Calcutta High Court judge C.S. Karnan, in which he had challenged the constitutionality of the Indian Contempt of Courts Act.

Mittal has also contributed to jurisprudence that focuses on constitutional rights.

In 2018, she held that advertisements prohibiting women from applying for recruitment to the Indian Territorial Army violated the Territorial Army Act, 1948, which allows men and women to apply.

She has also served on the benches of several significant cases concerning political figures.

In August 2018, she and Justice C. Hari Shankar found that the provisions of the Bombay Prevention of Begging Act, 1959 were largely unconstitutional, and struck it down.

On 3 August 2018, Mittal was appointed Chief Justice of the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir.

She is the first female Chief Justice of that court.

In 2019, Mittal wrote to the Supreme Court of India calling for the appointment of additional judges to handle the caseload at the Jammu and Kashmir High Court, noting that the Court was functioning at half its judicial capacity with only ten judges serving instead of the allocated seventeen.

Justice Mittal forwarded seven names for the consideration of the Supreme Court collegium, which appoints judges to the High Courts in India.

She retired on 8 December 2020.