[5][6][7] S. Muralidhar completed his Bachelor of Sciences (Chemistry) from the Vivekananda College, Chennai securing first class from the Madras University in 1981.
Dr. S. Muralidhar was awarded a Ph.D. by the University of Delhi in February 2003 for a Doctoral Programme entitled "Legal Aid and the Criminal Justice System in India".
He qualified the Advocate-on-Record Examination in 1990 securing the first position in merit and was awarded the Mukesh Goswami Memorial Prize.
[19][20][21] The hurried "midnight" transfer of Justice Dr. S. Muralidhar was widely panned by lawyers, former judges, civil society members and the media across the country, and was considered to be a punitive measure by the government for the hearings conducted by the Division Bench of the High Court of Delhi headed by Justice Muralidhar into the inaction of police during the 2020 Delhi riots.
He also has stated that he viewed the act of judging to take place in a "space that is both mediative and meditative" and that though there is a distinction between neutrality and impartiality, they are not antithetical.
While he acknowledged that impartiality is an essential attribute and non-compromisable for a judge, he viewed neutrality, as per the Constitution, to require "the judge at all levels to be able to discern the weak from the strong litigant in terms of their capacities to access justice and lean on the side of the vulnerable in order to attempt to achieve equality of arms."
"[46] He also dealt with issue of reproductive health in Laxmi Mandal v. Deen Dayal Harinagar Hospital (2010)[47] which highlighted the deficiencies in the implementation of a cluster of schemes, funded by the Government of India, which were meant to reduce infant and maternal mortality, and the resultant systemic failure that lead to the denial of benefits to two mothers below the poverty line (BPL) during their pregnancy and immediately thereafter.
In this judgement he deprecated the practice where "instead of making it easier for poor persons to avail of the benefits, the efforts at present seem to be to insist upon documentation to prove their status as 'poor' and 'disadvantaged'" and that "this onerous burden on them to prove that they are the persons in need of urgent medical assistance constitutes a major barrier to their availing of the services".
The Court further directed that the "State agencies will ensure that basic civic amenities, consistent with the rights to life and dignity of each of the citizens in the jhuggies, are available at the site of relocation".
vs Union Of India (2019),[49] a PIL which dealt with the forced eviction of 5,000 jhuggi (hutments) dwellers in 2015, he authored the judgment on behalf of the Division Bench which held that "a Court approached by persons complaining against forced eviction" should not view them as "encroachers" and illegal occupants of land, but rather to "require the agencies to first determine if the dwellers are eligible for rehabilitation in terms of the extant law and policy.
They recognise such persons as rights bearers whose full panoply of constitutional guarantees require recognition, protection and enforcement.
"[49] He also authored the Judgement in Kulwinder v. State (NCT of Delhi) (2018),[50] where the High Court set aside the trial court verdict and held that the Mirchpur Dalit killing incident of 2010 was "an instance of caste based violence" where there was "deliberate targeting" of setting houses on fire in a "pre-planned and carefully orchestrated manner", and thus a case of murder.
[51] In Naz Foundation v. NCT of Delhi (2009)[52] he was part of the Division Bench which held that "Section 377 IPC, insofar as it criminalises consensual sexual acts of adults in private, is violative of Articles 21, 14 and 15 of the Constitution".
[58] While authoring the judgement on behalf of the Division Bench in Zulfikar Nasir v. State Of Uttar Pradesh (2018),[59] which dealt with the Hashimpura Massacre of 1987 where the High Court convicted 16 personnel of the PAC and sentenced them to life imprisonment by overturning the trial court verdict, he referred to the "General Comment on the Right to Truth in relation to enforced disappearances" put out by the "United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances" in relation to the "right of the victim to know the truth".