Navin Chawla (judge)

Navin Chawla (born 7 August 1969) is an Indian jurist serving as a Permanent Judge of the Delhi High Court. Appointed to the bench in May 2017, Chawla has a background in telecommunications and broadcasting law and has presided over several high-profile cases.
Life and career
Chawla was born on 7 August 1969 in New Delhi and attended Delhi Public School, Mathura Road and Delhi University, earning a Bachelor of Commerce from the latter in 1990. Thereafter, he obtained a Bachelor of Laws from Campus Law Centre and enrolled with the Bar Council of Delhi in 1993, qualifying as an Advocate-on-Record for the Supreme Court of India six years after that. In 2001, Chawla was appointed as the Standing Counsel for the Union of India at Delhi High Court.
On 15 May 2017, Chawla, Rekha Palli, C Hari Shankar, and Prathiba M. Singh were appointed Permanent Judges of Delhi High Court by the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee, and were administered oath by Gita Mittal. Chawla, whose focus was in telecommunications and broadcasting law, sat alongside Shripathi Ravindra Bhat. At the time, the court was working below its sanctioned strength of 60, with its four new appointments taking the total to 38. Chawla heard a case in which The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India alleged that a trailer for was derogatory towards the profession of chartered accountancy, and determined that it was not. Five weeks later, Chawla heard a defamation case, Asian News International vs. Wikimedia Foundation, by Asian News International (ANI) against the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) and ordered that the Foundation reveal the identities of three editors who had edited ANI's page. His actions were criticised by the journalist Nikhil Pahwa and the Chinese University of Hong Kong global media professor Nishant Shah. By 5 September, the WMF had not complied, and Chawla warned that the court might ask the government to block in India.
On 28 August, he heard a case by Rohan Dua, the founder of The New Indian, who sought the deletion of several tweets that accused him of conducting a sexist interview with Manu Bhaker; initially ordering their deletion; he later vacated the order on 10 September after determining that there was nothing defamatory about the posts. On 7 October, he was scheduled to hear a bail petition by Umar Khalid, though this was adjourned to the following month.

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