The Centre government on Friday notified the appointment of former Supreme Court judge Justice Ranjana Desai as chairperson of the Press Council of India.
72-year-old retired judge Ranjana Desai becomes the first woman judge. She will succeed Justice (retd) CK Prasad demitted office in November 2021. She also heads a five-member committee the Uttarakhand Government constituted to draft the uniform civil code.
“The Government of India has today nominated Smt. Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai as Chairperson of Press Council of India,” stated the official release.
She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from the Elphinstone College in 1970 and Bachelor of Law from Government Law College, Bombay in 1973.
She enrolled as an advocate on July 30, 1970. In 1979, she started working as Assistant Government Pleader in the Bombay High Court. Justice Desai was appointed as Assistant Government Pleader and Additional Public Prosecutor for the State of Maharashtra in 1983. She was appointed as the State of Maharashtra’s Special Public Prosecutor in cases concerning preventive detention in 1986.
She was appointed as Government of Maharashtra as a government pleader in appeals at the Bombay High Court in 1995.
She became an additional judge at the Bombay High Court on 15 April 1996 and became a permanent judge on 12 April 1998. Justice Desai was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2011 and served till 2014.
Justice (Rtd) Desai took charge as chairperson of the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity on 1 December 2014 and was appointed as Advance Ruling Authority [Income Tax] in 2018.
She was appointed as the Head of the Delimitation Commission of India on 13 March 2020 and Head of the Uttarakhand UCC committee on 28th May 2022.
