Justice Leila Seth was appointed as the first female judge of the Delhi High Court on August 5, 1991. She achieved history by becoming the first woman to place first in the 1958 London Bar exam. She was born in Lucknow in October 1930. In 1959, she started her journey by deciding to become an advocate. She excelled in the Patna High Court’s jurisdiction, managing a wide variety of cases including complex tax difficulties, civil disputes, corporate affairs, criminal trials, marriage issues, and cases involving the public interest.

She expanded her legal services to include the Supreme Court, handling challenging cases like tax appeals, constitutional questions, and civil and criminal cases. Her remarkable legal abilities were acknowledged, which resulted in her nomination as a member of the team of attorneys defending the West Bengal administration before the Supreme Court beginning in June 1974. When she was appointed Senior Advocate by the Supreme Court on January 10, 1977, her status became official.

She first held the position of Chief Justice of a High Court at the Himachal Pradesh High Court in 1992 after serving as a judge on the Delhi High Court.

Strongly supporting equality, she spearheaded attempts to change the Hindu Succession Act to guarantee daughters’ equal inheritance rights in joint family property. In Shakuntala Kumari v. Om Parkash Ghai, Justice Leila Seth concluded that a wife’s threat to harm herself could be viewed as cruel behaviour toward her husband. In the famous case of NG Dastane v. S Dastane, it was determined using the same justification that a wife is being cruel to her husband if she threatens to kill herself and confirmed by another bench.

In her autobiography published in 2003 under the title On Balance, Justice Seth described her experience as a lawyer and the challenges she had in juggling work and family. Her commitment to education was demonstrated in the 2010 film We, The Children of India. She discussed numerous notable cases she was engaged with throughout the course of her lengthy fifty-year legal career in her 2014 book Talking of Justice. These included, among other things, promoting gender awareness within the judiciary, improving the management of the judicial system, combating violence against women, promoting the welfare of young girls, supporting a uniform civil code, upholding women’s rights, guaranteeing prisoners’ rights, and upholding women’s rights.

She criticized the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Naz Foundation case, which nullified the Delhi High Court’s historic decision altering section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. She emphasized that the fact that the verdict did not recognize the significant social stigma associated with this punishment showed a lack of empathy for the suffering of individuals and families.

Justice Seth has made a significant difference because of her essential support for Hindu daughters’ equal succession rights. In partnership with the Law Commission, she pushed for changes to the Hindu Succession Act that would grant daughters equal rights to inherited property. She was persistent in fighting for women’s inheritance rights because she recognized that in a patriarchal society, women might be capable of being self-sufficient financially. Her accomplishments inspired women and showed her tremendous influence in the legal and humanitarian fields, which was felt by people of all generations.