Viswanathan Ratnam (1 August 1932 – 23 May 2020) was an Indian judge and politician. He served as Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court and Governor of Himachal Pradesh.

Life and career

Ratnam was born in 1932. He passed B.Sc.,

LL.B Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Chi ...

. and was enrolled as an Advocate on 25 July 1955. He started practice on Civil and Labour matters in the

Madras High Court The Madras High Court is a High Court in India. It has appellate jurisdiction over the state of Tamil Nadu and the union territory of Puducherry. It is located in Chennai, and is the third oldest high court of India after the Calcutta High C ...

. Ratnam became the member of the Executive Committee of the

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a States and union territories of India, state in southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of India ...

Legal Aid Board. On 25 January 1979, he was appointed permanent Judge of Madras High Court. Since 15 November 1992, he also took charge of the Acting Chief Justice of Madras High Court. Justice Ratnam was elevated in the post of Chief Justice of

Himachal Pradesh High Court The Himachal Pradesh High Court is the High Court of the state of Himachal Pradesh. Himachal Pradesh was born as a result of integration of twenty six Province and four Punjab hill States into a Centrally Administered Area on 15 Ap ...

on 29 January 1994 and retired on 1 August 1994 from the post. He also took charge in the post of

Governor of Himachal Pradesh This is a list of governors of Himachal Pradesh. Sh.Rajendra Arlekar, Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar is the 21st governor (30th if governors with additional charge also counted) of Himachal Pradesh since July 2021. Out of the regular 20 governors ...

for 19 days. Ratnam died from

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

on 23 May 2020, at the age of 87.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ratnam, Viswanathan 1932 births 2020 deaths Governors of Himachal Pradesh Chief Justices of the Himachal Pradesh High Court Judges of the Madras High Court 20th-century Indian judges 21st-century Indian judges Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in India