Former Chief Justice of Kerala High Court (HC), KK Usha, passed away on October 5, 2020, at the age of 81. She died due to a cardiac arrest. She had undergone a surgery in her spinal cord, one week before her demise.
KK Usha began her career in 1961 after enrolling herself as an advocate. She had attended International Convention of the International Federation of Women Lawyers in Hamburg, Germany, in 1975, as the representative for India. She also represented India at the United Nations’ Joint Seminar on ‘Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination as regards women’, which was conducted by the International Federation of Women Lawyers and the International Federation of Women of Legal Careers. She had served as a government pleader in 1979, before being appointed as a judge.
She served as a judge from 1991 to 2000 in the HC. From the year 2000 to 2001, she served as the Chief Justice of Kerala HC. She was the first woman to join the HC from the bar and then to be appointed as the Chief Justice.
After her retirement from the Kerala HC, Usha headed the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal in Delhi from the year 2001 to 2004, for a period of three years. She also headed an enquiry by the Indian People’s Tribunal (IPT) for investigating the communal situation in Odisha, in the year 2005.
She was married to K Sukumaran, who was the former judge for Kerala and Bombay High Courts. They were the first judge couple of the country.