Why Bela Trivedi retired from Supreme Court as a deeply unpopular judge

“I expected your ladyship to have some empathy,” lawyer Kapil Sibal recalled telling Justice Bela Madhurya Trivedi after she had refused his client’s request for transfer from Karnataka to Kerala in a matter involving the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

“You don’t know me then,” Trivedi had shot back.

On May 16, Sibal, the Supreme Court Bar Association’s president narrated this anecdote in front of the ceremonial bench constituted to honour Justice Trivedi on her last working day.

Sibal was taking a dig at the reputation Trivedi had developed: a judge who was likely to reject bail applications, especially in politically sensitive cases. And someone who, especially in the last few months of her tenure, frequently clashed with lawyers. This led to the Supreme Court Bar Association and the Supreme Court Advocates on Record Association both declining to give her a farewell.

Trivedi could have been remembered as a trailblazer. She is one of only eleven women to have been a judge at the Supreme Court and the only female Supreme Court judge hailing from Gujarat. Beginning her judicial career in 1995 as a city civil and sessions court judge in Ahmedabad, she is also a rare district court judge whose career trajectory took her all the way up to the...

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