About The Author

Leila Seth was born in Lucknow and was the first woman to top the London Bar exam in 1958. She joined the bar in 1959. In the same year she also graduated as an IAS officer. Upon topping the Bar in England, Seth was referred to as “Mother-in-Law” by a London newspaper, which carried a photograph of a young Leila Seth with her infant son, born only a few months before the exams. At the same time, other newspapers expressed their grief about how out of 580 students who took the Bar Exam, a married woman topped it.When in India, she was a junior to Ashoke Kumar Sen when she used to practice during his absence from the central cabinet of India. She handled a large number of Tax matters (Income Tax, Sales Tax, Excise and Customs), Civil, Company and Criminal cases as also Matrimonial suits and writ petitions. In 1978, she was appointed as the first woman judge on the Delhi High Court. In 1991, she was appointed the Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh.She died after suffering a cardio-respiratory attack on the night of 5 May 2017 at her residence in Noida, aged 86. She is survived by her husband, two sons and a daughter. As per her wishes no funeral was held since she donated her eyes and other organs for transplant or medical research purposes.