Jagdish Sharan Verma

Jagdish Sharan Verma served as the twenty seventh Chief Justice of India, from March 1997 to January 1998, after joining the Supreme Court in 1989. Born in 1933 in Satna, Madhya Pradesh, he is remembered as a leading figure of judicial activism in India. He authored the 1997 Vishaka judgment, a landmark ruling that established guidelines against workplace sexual harassment, and over his Supreme Court tenure wrote one hundred forty nine judgments across six hundred thirty nine benches. After retiring he chaired the National Human Rights Commission from 1999 to 2003 and later led the Justice Verma Committee, whose report on reforming laws against sexual violence was completed in twenty nine days following the 2012 Delhi gang rape case. He died in 2013.