New Delhi: The Supreme Court appointed senior lawyers Sanjay Hegde, Sadhna Ramachandran and former Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah to go and talk to protesters at Shaheen Bagh area to convince them to hold the agitation at an alternative site. The three came to talk to the protesters on Wednesday. The Apex Court has fixed the matter for further hearing on February 24.
The three mediators — Sanjay R Hegde, senior advocate at Supreme Court, Wajahat Habibullah, former Chief Information Commissioner and Sadhana Ramachandran, senior Supreme Court lawyer. As no conclusion was found with the protesters, the three are set to visit Shaheen Bagh on Thursday as well. Here is what you need to know about the three.
Sanjay R Hegde
Sanjay R Hegde is a senior advocate of the Supreme Court, who also contributes as a columnist to various news organisations. He began his career back in 1989 while working as a lawyer with M/s Mulla & Mulla & Craigie Blunt & Caroe Solicitors. Hegde has gained his LLM while at work and thereafter moved to Delhi to practice in the Supreme Court in the Chambers of Senior Advocate G Ramaswamy. He has worked on several high profile cases, including representing the citizens excluded from NRC, in a habeas corpus case on Kashmir, mob lynching cases and in the recent Aarey forest case in Mumbai. The man was a centre of attraction last October, when Twitter had suspended his account for posting an anti-Nazi picture. He had sent a legal notice to Twitter for violating his freedom of speech.
Sadhana Ramachandran
An Advocate practicing in the Supreme Court since 1978, Sadhana Ramachandran has been associated with the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) for several years and has been part of several successful human rights investigations, particularly in the areas of child rights and education. She is a trained mediator since 2006 and has conducted mediations in all genres of disputes including matrimonial and family, contractual, commercial, industrial and intellectual property. She has been Organising Secretary of the Delhi High Court Mediation and Conciliation Centre (Samadhan) and is currently a member of its Overseeing Committee. She has been a mediator trainer and resource person for lawyers' mediation training programmes in several High Courts in India and has conducted credit courses in mediation in several Law Schools.
Wajahat Habibullah
Wajahat Habibullah was the chairperson of the National Commission for Minorities and held the position of the first Chief Information Commissioner of India prior to this. He was an officer of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) from 1968 until his retirement in August 2005 and was also Secretary to the Ministry of Panchayati Raj. Habibullah was also the Divisional Commissioner of eight districts of the Kashmir Division in the Jammu and Kashmir between 1991 and 1993, which was abruptly terminated by a near-fatal road accident, while negotiating with militants occupying the Hazratbal shrine in Kashmir. He was also appointed as an official in the Kunan Poshpora rape case in 1991, when he was the divisional commissioner.