Fathima Beevi, India’s First Female Supreme Court Judge Dies At 96

India’s first female Supreme Court Judge, Fathima Beevi died on Thursday at the age of 96. Besides her highly respected career in the top court of India, Fathima Beevi left significant mark on the political sphere also and served as the Governor of Tamil Nadu. She helmed the Governor position after being retired from the Supreme Court.

She is a native of Pandalam in the district of Pathanamthitta, Kerala, and was born in 1927. She secured a Bachelor of Science degree from Thiruvananthapuram University College and obtained a Bachelors in Law from the Government Law College.

Fathima Beevi topped the Bar Council exam and became the first woman to receive a Bar Council gold medal. She began her judicial career from Kerala itself in 1950. She then became a district and sessions judge in 1974. In 1980, she joined the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal and was appointed as a High Court judge in 1983.

It was in 1989, Fathima Beevi rose to the historic position of the first women Judge of the Supreme Court of India. She is also the first Muslim woman to be appointed to a higher judiciary in the country, and the first women to become a Supreme Court justice in an Asian Country.

Fathima Beevi retired from her judicial career in 1993 and then served as a member of the National Human Rights Commission. She was later designated as the Governor of Tamil Nadu, but resigned from position after rejecting the mercy petitions filed by four condemned prisoners in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, said the Bar and Bench.