Born on August 22nd, 1946, Justice V.S. Sirpurkar hails from a distinguished family of lawyers. Matriculating from Chandrapur District of Maharashtra, he topped in the district and completed his graduation from Morris College, Nagpur in 1966. He obtained his law degree from the University College of Law, Nagpur, and subsequently practiced at Nagpur in the High Court, specializing in constitutional and criminal matters.
During his practice, he was actively involved in the High Court Bar Association, serving as Joint Secretary and Secretary. He was also elected as a Member of the Maharashtra Bar Council twice, in 1985 and 1991.
In 1992, he was elevated as a Judge of the Bombay High Court. While there, he was in charge of the Judicial Officers Training Institute, Nagpur, as a Visiting Judge. He was later transferred to the Madras High Court in December 1997, where he also held the post of Executive Chairman of the Tamil Nadu State Legal Services Authority. Justice Sirpurkar played a key role in establishing the Judicial Academy at Madras and is a Life Member of the World Wild Life Fund.
He was appointed as Chief Justice of the High Court of Uttaranchal on July 16th, 2004, serving from July 25th, 2004, to March 19th, 2005, where he initiated a Judicial Academy called Ujala. He was also co-opted as a Member of the Legal Education Committee of the Bar Council of India, New Delhi, and elected unopposed as a Member of the Governing Council of the India Law Institute, New Delhi, from 2004 to 2007.
Justice Sirpurkar assumed the office of Chief Justice of the High Court at Calcutta on March 20, 2005, transferring from the High Court of Uttaranchal. He also started a Judicial Academy in West Bengal and was nominated by the Bar Council of India to the General Council of the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, for a term ending on July 28, 2007. Additionally, he was a Member of the General Council of West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata, from March 20, 2005. He was elevated to the Supreme Court of India on January 12, 2007, and retired on August 21, 2011.
