The newly-appointed Chief Justice of Jharkhand High Court R Banumathi will take oath of office and secrecy on Saturday at the Governor House in Ranchi. Governor Syed Ahmed will administer oath to her at Birsa Mandap in Raj Bhwan.
Earlier, Justice Banumathi reached Ranchi airport on Friday where she was given a guard of honour by the state. She went directly from the airport to Raj Bhwan to meet the Governor. Justice Banumathi, who has been appointed as Chief Justice of the Jharkhand High Court by President Pranab Mukherjee a couple of days back, has been elevated to the post after a collegiums of judges of the Supreme Court’s.
Notably, Justice Banumathi will take charge as the second lady Chief Justice of Jharkhand High Court, after Justice Gyan Sudha Misra. Born on July 20, 1955, Justice Banumathi was first elevated as the Judge of Madras High Court on April 3, 2003. Banumathi, also becomes the ninth Chief Justice of Jharkhand, who had also been appointed as District and Sessions Judge in Coimbatore, Vellore and Principal, District and Sessions Judge in Pudukottai, Madras, Tirunelveli and Salem as well. She also worked as the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate in Madras.
She entered Higher Judicial Service of Tamilnadu in 1988 directly as a District Judge where she dealt with a number of landmark cases. She also led one-man Commission on police excess by STF in Chinnampathy village, Coimbatore district in 1995-1996. Banumathi was also involved actively in lok Adalat and legal literacy Programme and organized a number of legal literacy camps and lok Adalats in Pudukottai, Tirunelveli, Salem and Madras. She has also been actively participating in judicial activities to strengthen judicial systems; she also became the Director of the Training Programme for Civil Judges (Junior Division) in 1998.
She also played a key role in organizing several training programmes in Judicial Academy and throughout the State of Tamil Nadu responding to the need for continuing judicial education for strengthening judicial system from 2008 to 2010. Banumathi has also a credit of bringing out a book on "Effective District Administration and Court Management", ‘Court Staff - Registers and legal Procedure’ and ‘Important legal Provisions at a glance’.