Though even after 75 years of Independence the representation of women both at the Bar and the Bench has been meagre, we have numerous examples of women who have fought all odds to emerge as a winner in this male-dominated profession and who have made a name for themselves. This column is an ode to such fighters.
JUSTICE VIBHA VASANT KANKANWADI
Born on June 24, 1964 at Bijapur in Karnataka State, Justice Vibha V. Kankanwadi comes from a family of Lawyers and Judicial Officers. She completed her B. Com. from People’s College, Nanded, and LL.B. from Ismailsaheb Mulla Law College, Satara. She stood 4th in the Shivaji University in the 1st year LL.B. She holds a Diploma in Cyber Law from the Asian Law School.
Justice Kankanwadi practiced on the civil as well as the criminal side at Satara, Pune, and on the Appellate Side at the Bombay High Court between 1987 to 1992.
She joined the judiciary as Civil Judge Junior Division & Judicial Magistrate First Class at Thane on July 1, 1992. Thereafter, she worked in the same capacity at Kolhapur and Pune Cantonment.
Justice Kankanwadi was promoted as Additional District & Sessions Judge on March 26, 2002, and she worked at Sangli, Jaysingpur, District Kolhapur.
Thereafter, she was transferred as Joint Director, Judicial Officers’ Training Institute, Nagpur, and was sent on deputation to the Maharashtra Judicial Academy at Uttan, District Thane. There, she imparted training to more than 350 Judicial Officers.
After working as the District & Sessions Judge at Nagpur and Sangli, she was promoted as the Principal District & Sessions Judge in June 2013. She worked in that position at Wardha and Solapur.
On June 5, 2017, Justice Kankanwadi was elevated as the Additional Judge of the High Court of Judicature at Bombay.
Notable JudgmentsIn December 2023, a Division Bench of Justice Vibha V. Kankanwadi and Justice Abhay S. Waghwase, sitting at Aurangabad, directed the State to come up with a standard operating procedure (SOP), and frame guidelines for conducting test identification parades in cases under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, while ensuring victim’s confidentiality.
In November 2023, a Division Bench of Justice Kankanwadi and Justice Waghwase, while upholding a man’s conviction for murdering his own daughter, observed that his advocate relied on an outdated judgment to challenge the conviction. The Aurangabad Bench of the Bombay High Court held that an advocate should possess up-to-date knowledge of the law, and just not cite any case which is no longer good in law.
In October 2023, a Division Bench of Justice Kankanwadi and Justice Waghwase, sitting at Aurangabad, while dismissing a man’s appeal against conviction and life sentence, held that the bone ossification test to determine the age of victim in a case under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, is required only when the victim is on the cusp of majority; thereby accepting the victim in question as a minor based on the father’s evidence.
In August 2023, the Aurangabad Division Bench of the Bombay High Court comprising Justice Kankanwadi and Justice Waghwase, held that a plea of not being armed would not absolve an accused from liability under section 149 of the IPC (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object).
Purnima Arora LL.B (Gold Medalist), Advocate, Delhi High Court
