R.A. Mehta

Rameshchandra Amrut Mehta (born 1936) is a retired justice of the Gujarat High Court. During his fourteen-year tenure in the Gujarat High Court, he came to be known for his probity and sympathy for the poor. Following the 1979 Morvi dam failure, the worst flood disaster in Independent India, he assisted Justice BK Mehta commission in the investigations.

Judicial career

He was appointed to the Gujarat High Court in 1983. Among his significant judgments of this period were the abolition of carrying of night soil on head by low-caste menials, and the regularisation of street hawkers in Ahmedabad. In the Golana massacre case, in which four Dalits were killed by upper-caste Darbars (Rajputs), eleven of whom were sentenced to life, he gave guidelines for the government and police to follow in case of caste and communal tensions. He was also responsible for modernization and computerization of the Gujarat High Court.

His appointment came at a time of intense popular outburst against corruption in India, and on the 13th day of Anna Hazare's hunger fast against corruption. Justice Mehta is known to be close to Anna, who had stayed with him on a visit to Ahmedabad in May 2011. On 2 April 2013 the Narendra Modi led government passesd a bill in the Gujarat Assembly to overhaul the Lokayukta institution, virtually giving all its powers to the state and rendering it toothless.