Spotlight: Justice Dama Seshadri Naidu, the former judge batting for Election Commission in Supreme Court

Spotlight is a series where we shine the, well, spotlight on members of the legal fraternity who made the news over the past week.

This week the spotlight fell on former High Court judge and Senior Advocate Dama Seshadri Naidu.

Naidu's career has been unique to say the least - with a relatively late and "accidental entry" to the legal profession, transfer to another High Court as a puisne judge nine months after elevation, voluntary resignation from judgeship and a prompt return to active practice as a lawyer.

In the past few months, he has featured both at the Supreme Court and the Calcutta High Court, representing the Election Commission of India (ECI).

With the controversies surrounding the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in several states, especially West Bengal, the ECI and its actions have been under the public scanner like never before.

The unparalleled nature of the West Bengal SIR exercise in particular, especially with regard to the judiciary's handling of it, started becoming evident on January 19 when the Supreme Court directed the ECI to publish the names of the approximately 1.36 crore persons who were included in the "logical discrepancy" list of the ECI.

Naidu had objected to the direction arguing that disclosure of reasons for logical discrepancy may impinge on privacy.

On February 4, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee herself moved the Supreme Court and appeared in person and requested the Court to halt the SIR process.

On February 20, there was an extraordinary development.

Citing a trust deficit between the Banerjee-led government and the ECI, the Supreme Court ordered the deployment of judicial officers, including retired judges to revisit and dispose of the pending claims under the category of logical discrepancy/unmapped category. The direction was passed after Naidu submitted that ECI had asked for qualified EROs but the State asked it to wait for further communication. Naidu also reiterated the ECI's allegations that the SIR was marred by violence, intimidation and sustained political interference.

However, on April 1, seven judicial officers, including three women judges, involved in the SIR of electoral rolls were gheraoed for hours in Malda district by those protesting their deletion from the voter list.

Naidu brought this to the notice of the Supreme Court early the very next day and the the top court registered a suo motu case. It ordered the deployment of central armed forces for the safety of the judicial officers.

At the Calcutta High Court, Naidu recently appeared for the ECI when the Court was hearing the "troublemakers list" matter. Election authorities in West Bengal had directed action against alleged troublemakers ahead of the ongoing State Assembly elections. The order was reportedly issued on the instructions of the ECI.

During the proceedings, Naidu informed the High Court that the list had been prepared solely to prevent possible disturbances during elections and that no directions had been issued to arrest anyone. He further said that the poll body has the authority to adopt preventive measures to safeguard free and fair elections and that anyone facing unjust action could seek legal remedy. However, the Court stayed the directions issued by ECI regarding the troublemakers list.

On behalf of the ECI, Naidu has relentlessly justified the introduction of the logical discrepancy list in West Bengal, which has arguably disenfranchised over 34 lakh citizens in the State whose appeals against their exclusion from the final voter rolls have not been resolved even as the State went to polls earlier this week.

How does one go from High Court judge to representing one of the most important statutory bodies in the country in such a crucial hour? Perhaps a look at Naidu's life and career may have some answers.

Background

Naidu was born on June 19, 1962, in a small town close to the famous Tirupati temple in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh.

Naidu had humble beginnings. After schooling, he did a polytechnic and three year diploma course. He did a few odd jobs but later went back to his village and started farming. While there, he cleared a banking exam. For 11 years, he worked as a clerk in a bank while simultaneously getting his BA degree through an open university. After he ran into an old friend who had started working as a law professor, Naidu decided to apply for his law degree after securing a loan from the very bank he worked at.

He obtained his law degree from Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati and enrolled with the Bar in March 1997, at the age of 35.

In the early 2000s, he moved to Hyderabad and started practising before the Andhra Pradesh High Court and civil and criminal courts in the city. He represented several corporate entities, nationalised banks, as well as private clientele.

On September 21, 2013, Naidu was elevated to the Bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court.

Less than a year later, in June 2014, he was transferred to the Kerala High Court as an additional judge. At the time, appointment of puisne judges from other High Courts was not common practice.

In March 2019, he was transferred to Bombay High Court.

According to an article in Outlook, Naidu had requested that he be repatriated to his parent High Court. However, the judges of the Collegium who recommended his elevation had made it clear that Naidu would have to be transferred out of Andhra Pradesh as he had some personal connections with the State's Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu.

Work as a judge

Naidu’s half-decade long tenure at the Kerala High Court is perhaps where his judicial acumen and personality can be most vividly highlighted. By all accounts, he was well loved by both the Bar and the Bench in Kerala.

He was known for taking poetic interludes in his judgments and his keen knowledge and love for even the most mundane of laws.

In his judgment in P Geetha v The Kerala Livestock Development Board Ltd & Ors, Naidu held that a female employee attaining motherhood through surrogacy was equally entitled to maternity benefits under the service regulations as a woman having pregnancy through biological means. He quoted poet Robert Browning and American Birth Control Activist and Nurse Margaret Sanger with equal vigour in this judgment.

In Anoop MS v. State of Kerala, Naidu, while holding that the right to consume alcohol is not a fundamental right, nevertheless sympathised with the petitioner, a habitual drinker. Naidu referred to the petitioner's plight as a Hamletian dilemma - "to drink or not to drink". In the same breath as quoting Shakespeare, Naidu referred to the lyrics of Bob Dylan - "the times they are a-changing."

In Dhanyamol CJ & Anr v. State of Kerala, Naidu struck down rules that prohibited women from being employed in liquor shops or as bartenders, calling it unconstitutional and discriminatory.

In another widely celebrated judgment, in Felix MA v. MV Gangadharan, a bench comprising Naidu and the then Chief Justice of the Kerala High Court refused to categorise a magazine cover featuring a woman breastfeeding as obscene. The judgment authored by Naidu noted that "one man’s vulgarity is another man’s lyric" and said that the Court "looked at the picture with the same eyes we look at paintings of Raja Ravi Varma".

At the Bombay High Court too, in Yash Pramesh Rana & Ors v. State of Maharashtra, he came to the rescue of a group of vulnerable students and directed the State government to refund their education and examination fees saying, “we have travelled far, but not far enough”.

In a 2019 judgment, Naidu, while dealing with a three-decade old property dispute, took special note of the judicial delays that plague the system and its impact on helpless litigants.

"Given the enormous and inevitable delays in judicial adjudication, most of the time, the winner turns out to be the actual loser. The victory remains hollow: a pyrrhic victory (a victory that is not worth winning because the winner has lost so much in winning it)," he said.

Return to the Bar

Naidu's stint as a judge saw its end when he tendered his resignation in 2021, just two years after he was transferred to the Bombay High Court. When he initially spoke to Bar & Bench then, he stated that he had resigned for personal reasons, refusing to go into further detail.

It must be noted that Naidu was not the first or last to resign from judgeship voluntarily. Senior Advocates PS Patwalia, V Giri and Neeraj Kishan Kaul - all Supreme Court practitioners - had resigned as High Court judges to return to law practice.

He donned the lawyer's robes for a second innings at the Bar just a month later and currently practices before the Supreme Court and various other High Courts.

Apart from his ongoing representation of the ECI, as a Senior Advocate, Naidu has appeared for a variety of clients ranging from politicians to private corporate entities.

In 2024, he represented Tamil Nadu BJP leader H Raja before the Supreme Court in his plea to quash the multiple criminal cases lodged over the politician's remarks on social activist Periyar and women.

While the petition was ultimately dismissed, a Bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and PK Mishra expressed its appreciation for Naidu's arguments saying, "we are so impressed by your arguments that we will simply say dismissed".

In another political case, Naidu appeared for four lawmakers belonging to the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) party who sought to transfer the trial in the 2015 cash-for-votes scam against Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy to a trial court outside Telangana.

The same year, he appeared before the Supreme Court in a matter concerning the troubled acquisition of the bankrupt Coastal Energen by a consortium led by Dickey Alternative Investment Trust (DAIT) and Adani Power.

Naidu also appeared in matters concerning his own home State. In the wake of the Tirupati Laddu controversy, he represented a PIL petitioner before the top court seeking pan-India regulations to ensure that only safe quality prasad (religious offerings) is distributed at temples 

In 2025, Naidu appeared for the father of a young boy who died in the Karur stampede in which least 41 people died during a political rally of Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK). The case ultimately led to the Supreme Court ordering a CBI probe.

Interview with Bar and Bench (August 2023)

In 2023, Naidu spoke about his "accidental entry" into the legal profession, his experience of presiding at three different High Courts, why he resigned, the pressure on judges due to case backlog and increasing online criticism.

Naidu also shed light on how technology is important for the judiciary and explained why he is not in favour of the use of artificial intelligence for judgment writing.

In the candid conversation, Naidu said that to attract and retain real talent in the judiciary, the system needs to change and judgeship should be more remunerative. He confessed that financial constraints and distance from family led to his decision to resign.

"Being a judge is an all-consuming profession. Around the clock, you are thinking of cases, the fate of the people. And you have been bogged down by your financial constraints, etc. You cannot give your best. So I thought when I could not give my best, I didn't have any place to be there," he said.

He also said that his transfer, regardless of reason, cast a shadow on his image as many within and outside the legal community assumed that it was due to corruption allegations.

On his return to advocacy, Naidu said that his stint on the Bench helped him immensely. Now, he knows how a judge's mind works and his perspective on arguments has evolved for the better.

"We lawyers, as always, think backward because we want a solution. This perspective gets improved if you are a judge-turned-lawyer," he said.