New Delhi, 26 June—An obvious victim of the mechanisms of the country’s judicial system, Justice S Murlidhar’s scathing report accusing Israeli security forces of deliberately targeting and killing Palestinian children reads like a fairy tale raising hope against hope that such honest, courageous and upright judges exist.
Six years ago in February 2020, as deadly communal riots broke out in northeast Delhi, Muralidhar, then a senior judge of the Delhi High Court, had shown his judicial responsibility by convening an extraordinary midnight hearing at his residence to ensure safe medical passage for the wounded.
The following afternoon, he sharply reprimanded the Delhi police for failing to register criminal cases against ruling party politicians for hate speech. “We cannot let another 1984 happen in this city under our watch,” Muralidhar had warned.
Murlidhar’s sense of duty and loyalty to the Constitution had infuriated the ruling BJP at the Centre as within hours of his rebuke, as an unprecedented was issued midnight notifying shifting Muralidhar to the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The timing sparked national outrage, prompting a rare strike by the Delhi High Court Bar Association, which condemned the transfer as a punitive strike against an independent judge. The abrupt order derailed his career within India’s judicial system.
Six years later, Justice Muralidhar has re-emerged on the global stage, wielding the same uncompromising legal lens that once cost him his bench in New Delhi.
As chair of the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry, the retired Indian jurist has unveiled a scathing report accusing Israeli security forces of deliberately targeting and killing Palestinian children.
The inquiry concluded that at least 20,179 children were killed over a two-year period, accounting for nearly 30 per cent of all Palestinian fatalities. The commission declared that Israel’s military campaign and systemic actions amounted to genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The report outlined a chilling pattern of behaviour, including the targeted use of snipers and precision drone strikes against minors, alongside blockades that induced widespread starvation.
Muralidhar’s panel highlighted systematic attacks on vital civilian infrastructure, specifically neonatal and maternity care facilities, which it argued directly compromised the community’s reproductive future.
The findings also documented instances of sexual violence and arbitrary detentions of children in the West Bank. While Israel’s foreign ministry fiercely dismissed the report as an “outrageous propaganda piece” and a “libelous sham,” the commission insisted that the evidence established an undeniable “genocidal intent” to destroy Palestinian society from its roots.
For close observers of the Indian legal ecosystem, Muralidhar’s unflinching stance before a global military power is entirely characteristic. It carries deep echoes of the dramatic episode that turned him into an overnight symbol of the debate around judicial independence under the Narendra Modi administration.
In September 2022, the Supreme Court Collegium recommended Justice Muralidhar’s transfer to the Madras High Court. The government stalled the decision for six months. The collegium recalled the proposal in April 2023.
The farewell Justice Muralidhar got on retirement from the Orissa High Court was also unprecedented, with lawyers lining up from the court to the street as a mark of respect.
Now based in Geneva, the country’s legal luminary has established himself as an inconvenient truth-teller to power. While the “Gaza report” assignment may appear to be just one-off assignment in fact he is being looked upon as the torch bearer of the truth. The commission is an ongoing investigative body created by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021 to investigate alleged violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law connected to the conflict and to report periodically to UN bodies.
Veteran Journalist and Political Commentator
