Justice Rajiv Shakdher on Wednesday has been sworn in as the Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court.
The oath of office was administered by Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla. The official notification regarding his appointment was issued on September 21.
Justice Shakdher’s tenure as Chief Justice will be brief, as he is set to retire on October 18.
Born on October 19, 1962, Justice Shakdher was appointed as an additional judge of the Delhi High Court on April 11, 2008, and subsequently became a permanent judge on October 17, 2011.
Throughout his judicial career, he has delivered numerous landmark judgments on diverse issues, notably including the criminalization of marital rape.
In May 2022, Justice Shakdher ruled in favor of criminalizing marital rape, in contrast to his colleague, Justice C. Hari Shankar, who opposed the motion and declined to invalidate the existing exception.
In his ruling, Justice Shakdher asserted that the immunity granted to husbands is “steeped in patriarchy and misogyny,” emphasizing that non-consensual sexual relations within marriage are fundamentally at odds with the contemporary understanding of marriage as a partnership of equals.
Justice Shakdher received his early education at St. Columba’s School in Delhi. He earned a Bachelor of Commerce (Hons.) degree from Delhi University in 1984 and obtained his LL.B. from the Law Faculty at the University of Delhi in 1987, enrolling as an advocate on November 19, 1987.
He also completed his Chartered Accountancy from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India in 1987 and pursued an Advanced Course of Law at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London, in 1994.
