Indu Malhotra is a judge of the Supreme Court of India. Prior to her elevation as a Judge, she was a senior counsel practicing in the same Court for the past 30 years. She was the second woman to be designated as Senior Advocate by the Supreme Court in 2007. She has authored the third edition of a commentary The Law and Practice of Arbitration and Conciliation (2014). Shespecializes in the law of arbitration, and has appeared in various domestic and international commercial arbitrations. In December 2016 she has been made member of the High Level Committee (HLC) in the Ministry of Law and Justice by the Government of India to review Institutionalization of Arbitration Mechanism in India. She had been unanimously recommended for appointment as a judge of the Supreme Court. Her appointment was confirmed and ordered by the Government on 26 April 2018.

She is the first woman judge to be elevated directly from the Bar. Justice R. Banumathi was the lone woman judge in the top court with a strength of 25 judges previously. Amid a call for greater gender diversity in the Supreme Court, Ms. Malhotra’s name was cleared unanimously by the Collegium, comprising Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Justices J. Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B. Lokur and Kurian Joseph. The Supreme Court has always had no or little representation from woman judges; it took 39 years for the court to get its first. Ms. Malhotra’s appointment will revive the call for greater gender equality in the court.

Born in 1956 in Bangalore to Late Shri Om Prakash Malhotra, Sr. Advocate in Supreme Court and distinguished author and Late Satya Malhotra as their youngest child. She did her schooling from Carmel Convent School, New Delhi. Afterwards, she did her B.A. (Hons.) Political Science from Lady Shri Ram College, University of Delhi, and later completed her Masters in Political Science from the same college. After obtaining her Masters Degree, she worked briefly as a Lecturer in Political Science in MirandaHouse College and Vivekananda College, Delhi University. She did her Bachelor of Laws from the Faculty of Law, Delhi University during the period 1979 to 1982.

Indu Malhotra joined the legal profession in 1983, and was enrolled with the Bar Council of Delhi. In 1988, she qualified as an Advocate-on-Record in the Supreme Court, and secured the 1st position in the examination, for which she was awarded the MukeshGoswami Memorial Prize on National Law Day.

She was appointed as the Standing Counsel for the State of Haryana in the Supreme Court from 1991 to 1996. She represented various statutory corporations like Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Delhi Development Authority (DDA), Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and, Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR), before the Supreme Court. In 2007, she was designated as a Senior Advocate by the Supreme Court of India. She became the second woman to be designated by the Supreme Court after a gap of over 30 years. She has been appointed Amicus curiae by different benches of the Supreme Court in some matters. Recently, she was appointed as an amicus for restoration of Jaipur as a heritage city.

Some of the MNCs represented by her are: ANZ Grindlays Bank, KPMG, Agilent Technologies, Medtronic, British Petroleum (BP), Pepsico India, Indian Olympic Association (IOA), Medanta – The Medicity.

Indu Malhotra is appearing in certain PILs in the Supreme Court, on issues of public interest. For instance, she is appearing in a PIL filed by an NGO viz. Save Life Foundation, on the issue of providing protection to bystanders who provide assistance to road accident victims, and for framing guidelines for a Good Samaritan law in India. She has also been appearing in a PIL on the issue of challenging certain provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act with respect to protruding iron rods from transport carriers, which have caused fatal injuries. She has represented the National Commission for Women, in certain matters of public importance. She has also taken the lead in a public interest petition filed for framing of sentencing guidelines with respect to awarding punishment by the courts in rape cases, and another PIL on discrimination against women make-up artists in the film industry.

Indu Malhotra is specialized in the law of arbitration, and has appeared in various domestic and international commercial arbitrations. She has been empanelled as an Arbitrator with several Institutional Arbitration bodies like Indian Council of Arbitration (ICA), Delhi International Arbitration Centre (DAC), ASSOCHAM etc. She has recently authored an exhaustive and illuminating commentary on the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 published by Thomson Reuters. Eminent jurists have described it as a legal classic on arbitration.