Datuk Mahadev Shankar, a former judge of Malaysia’s Court of Appeal and one of the first commissioners of the national human rights commission, has died at the age of 94. He died at Shah Alam Hospital at about 2am on Monday, October 26, 2026.
His death was confirmed by his close friend Prabhakaran Nair, founder-president of the Malaysia-India Heritage Society, who said funeral arrangements would be announced later.
From Shearn Delamore to the bench
Shankar was born in Kuala Lumpur in 1932 and studied at the Victoria Institution. He was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in London in 1955 and to the Malayan Bar in 1956, and joined the Kuala Lumpur firm Shearn Delamore and Company, where he became a partner in 1961.
He was appointed a High Court judge in August 1983 and served in Johor, Kuala Lumpur and Selangor before being elevated to the Court of Appeal in 1994. He retired from the bench in November 1997.
Human rights and royal commissions
In 2000 he was appointed one of the early commissioners of the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia, Suhakam. He also served on Royal Commissions of Inquiry, including the 1999 inquiry into the “black eye” injury Anwar Ibrahim suffered in police custody and the 2007 inquiry into the VK Lingam video clip on judicial appointments.
A lasting legal legacy
The Malaysian Bar gave him its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014. Tributes described him as a scholar of the law whose judgments are still cited by the courts.