Legal legend passes away
REST IN PEACE Delhi High Court’s first woman judge and novelist Vikram Seth’s mother dies of cardiac arrest in Noida; body donated for medical research as per her wish
Leila Seth, the first woman judge of the Delhi high court, died of cardiac arrest at her Noida home on Friday night, her family and doctors said. She was 86.
As per her wish, her body was donated to Army College of Medical Sciences for research.
Leila Seth is the mother of novelist Vikram Seth. She was admitted to Apollo Hospitals in Delhi in August last year with a brain haemorrhage, but was discharged and walked back home, doctors said. “She was admitted again a couple of weeks ago with a femur fracture after a fall, but was treated and discharged on May 2,” said Pushpendra Renjen, senior consultant neurologist at Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals in Delhi.
Renjen, who was treating Leila, said on Friday he spoke to Vikram, who told him that her health was fine. The doctor was informed later that the former judge had passed away at night the same day. Renjen said he was informed of her death by her son Shantum.
The family said that at 10.28 pm on Friday, Leila complained of uneasiness, followed by a mild heart stroke. A doctor who lives nearby was called. “Soon after the doctor checked her, she died even before the ambulance could reach our house,” said Shantum.
Justice Seth broke many a glass ceiling during her lifetime, becoming the first woman chief justice of a High Court when she was elevated as the chief justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court. She was the first woman to top the London Bar exam and the first female judge of the Delhi High Court.
She was also a part of the Justice JS Verma committee that was set up to re-look at rape laws in India after the December 16, 2012, gang rape in Delhi.
She is survived by husband, two sons and a daughter, Aradhna. Leila Seth was considered a pioneering legal mind who was appointed the first woman judge of the Delhi HC in 1978. She lived with her husband Prem Nath Seth in her Noida Sector 15A house.
Vikram, his younger brother Shantum, a Mussoorie-based Buddhism preacher, and sister Aradhna, a filmmaker who lives in Goa, had gathered at the house on April 15 for Shantum’s birthday. The brothers stayed back and the sister left for Goa after the birthday function.
The family said she spent most of her time in her study — an eight by eight room filled with books, awards and trophies. “She was satisfied that she could write an autobiography, ‘On Balance’,” said Shantum.
A sack of books — Chetan Bhagat’s One Indian Girl being one of them — a computer and a printer stood on the table in front of the chair where she would sit. “She had wished to donate her body and thus got a card three months ago,” Shantum said.
Apart from her autobiography, she later went on to has authored other books too, including ‘We, the Children of India’ (2010), which explains the Constitution’s preamble to younger readers, and ‘Talking of Justice: People’s Rights in Modern India’ (2014), a work that discusses several critical issues she experienced during her legal career spanning 50 years.