Rameshchandra Amrut Mehta (born 1936, at Maliya, Gujarat) is a retired justice of the

Gujarat High Court The Gujarat High Court is the High Court of the state of Gujarat. It was established on 1 May 1960 under the ''Bombay Re-organisation Act, 1960'' after the state of Gujarat split from Bombay State. The seat of the court is Ahmedabad. The prese ...

. During his fourteen-year tenure in the Gujarat High Court, he came to be known for his probity and sympathy for the poor. During the

Morvi dam failure The Machchhu dam failure or Morbi disaster is a dam-related flood disaster which occurred on 11 August 1979. The Machchu-2 dam, situated on the Machchhu river, failed, sending a wall of water through the town of Morbi (now in the Morbi dis ...

of 1979, the worst flood disaster of Independent India, he assisted Justice BK Mehta commission in the investigations.. . .

Judicial career

He was appointed to the Gujarat High Court in 1983. Among his significant judgments of this period were the abolition of carrying of

night soil Night soil is a historically used euphemism for human excreta collected from cesspools, privies, pail closets, pit latrines, privy middens, septic tanks, etc. This material was removed from the immediate area, usually at night, by workers employ ...

on head by low-caste menials, and the regularisation of street hawkers in

Ahmedabad Ahmedabad ( ; Gujarati: Amdavad ) is the most populous city in the Indian state of Gujarat. It is the administrative headquarters of the Ahmedabad district and the seat of the Gujarat High Court. Ahmedabad's population of 5,570,585 (per t ...

. In the Golana massacre case, in which four

Dalit Dalit (from sa, दलित, dalita meaning "broken/scattered"), also previously known as untouchable, is the lowest stratum of the Caste system in India, castes in India. Dalits were excluded from the four-fold Varna (Hinduism), varna syste ...

s were killed by upper-caste Darbars (

Rajput Rajput (from Sanskrit ''raja-putra'' 'son of a king') is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating from the Indian subcontinent. The term Ra ...

s), eleven of whom were sentenced to life, he gave guidelines for the government and police to follow in case of caste and communal tensions. He was also responsible for modernization and computerization of the Gujarat High Court.

Lokayukta of Gujarat

In June 2011, the Chief Justice of the

suggested his name as the

Lokayukta The Lokayukta (also Lok Ayukta) ( ''lokāyukta'', ''"civil commissioner"'') is the Indian Parliamentary Ombudsman, executed into power, through and for, each of the State Governments of India. It is brought into effect in a state, after passi ...

of Gujarat, a critical anti-corruption post that had been lying vacant for seven years. However, the government of Gujarat dragged its feet on formalizing his appointment. In August 2011, responding to a

Public Interest Litigation The chief instrument through which judicial activism has flourished in India is public interest litigation (PIL) or social action litigation (SAL). ''Public interest litigation'' (PIL) refers to litigation undertaken to secure public interest and de ...

filed by the father of the murdered RTI-activist Amit Jethwa, the High Court issued a show-cause notice to the government on the delay in appointment. Eventually, the governor herself made the appointment, bypassing the government, leading to much constitutional debate. The Narendra Modi government contested the validity of his appointment without their approval and appealed a case in the High court. On 11 October 2011, the division bench of the Gujarat high Court gave a split verdict, with senior member Justice Akil Kureshi holding Mehta's appointment by the governor as "constitutional and valid" while junior member Sonia Gokani made it clear that she "differed" with her fellow judge on the conclusion. However, later in January 2012, the Gujarat High Court upheld the appointment of Justice R.A. Mehta by a majority verdict. His appointment came at a time of intense popular outburst against corruption in India, and on the 13th day of

Anna Hazare Kisan Baburao "Anna" Hazare (; born 15 June 1937) is an Indian social activist who led movements to promote rural development, increase government transparency, and investigate and punish corruption in public life. In addition to organising an ...

's hunger fast against corruption. Justice Mehta is known to be close to Anna, who had stayed with him on a visit to Ahmedabad in May 2011. The Supreme Court in its verdict in January 2013 upheld the appointment of R A Mehta as state Lokayukta by Governor Kamla Beniwal, saying it was done in consultation with the Chief Justice of the High Court. On 2 April 2013 the Narendra Modi led government passesd a bill in the Gujarat Assembly to overhaul the Lokayukta institution, virtually giving all its powers to the state and rendering it toothless.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mehta, R. A. 1937 births Living people Judges of the Gujarat High Court Ombudsmen in India 20th-century Indian judges