JUSTICE ANUP JAIRAM BHAMBHANI

Justice Anup Kumar Bhambhani, was appointed as the judge of the Delhi High Court on October 22, 2018.

Anup Kumar was born in the year 1965 in New Delhi. He completed his schooling from the Springdales School, New Delhi in 1984. He then joined Delhi University’s St. Stephen’s College to complete his bachelor’s degree in Physics in 1987 followed by his master’s degree in Nuclear Physics in 1989.

He later joined Faculty of law, University of Delhi, where he completed his LL.B in the year 1992. Soon after he completed his college, he enrolled with the bar in 1992 and started practice with a senior lawyer and in 1994 set up his own chamber. His major practice was in media and criminal law.

He during his practice as a lawyer appeared before various Subordinate Courts, Delhi and various other High Courts and  the Supreme Court of India in the matters relating to criminal and civil defamation, right to privacy, media regulations, broadcasting and telecom regulations, breach of privacy, contempt of court and various other commercial disputes. 

Whilst in the times when Bhambhani started practicing, most of the lawyers had a legal background having their parents or some other member of their family practicing law; he not only had no connection with the people of the legal fraternity but also had no legal academic background as he had done his bachelors and master in physics. Bhambhani’s only relation to the profession came by marrying fellow Delhi High Court lawyer Nisha Bhambhani in 1996.

In the course of his overall practice, he has done tremendous work in the legal field from being part of various forums to conducting informative conferences. He has held responsibilities as resource person at multiple national and regional conferences at the National Judicial Academy, Delhi Judicial Academy, Maharashtra Judicial Academy, Tata Institute of Social Sciences and at law school seminars on diverse subjects, including free speech, trial-by-media, sting-operations, regulation of social media, incarceration of juveniles, victim compensation, witness protection, hate speech and on-line extremism and various other areas of law and society.

He served as a panel lawyer of the Delhi High Court Legal Services Committee from 2009 to 2014 and was the nominated Member of the Statutory Committee of the Delhi High Court Legal Services Committee from 26th May 2014 and Member of the Monitoring Committee for legal-aid lawyers from 06th August 2016, till the date of his appointment as Judge.

He was designated as senior advocate by the Delhi High Court on 14th February 2014 and was appointed as a Judge of the Delhi High Court on 22nd October 2018.

Bhambhani has during the course of his tenure as the judge of the Delhi High Court has given various important judgements.
Recently, in the case of, Firoz Khan vs. State, he on being questioned that granting bail at an early stage might send an “adverse message in the society”, maintained that, (Prisons are) not for detaining undertrials in order to send any ‘message’ to society. The remit of the court is to dispense justice in accordance with law, not to send messages to society. It is this sentiment, whereby the State demands that undertrials be kept in prison inordinately without any purpose, that leads to overcrowding of jails; and leaves undertrials with the inevitable impression that they are being punished even before trial and therefore being treated unfairly by the system.’’

Also, in one of the recent matter the bench comprising Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani held that even though privacy is recognized as a fundamental right that alone cannot make evidence collected in breach of that inadmissible.