Magistrate Vipin Benjamin was born in Manama, Bahrain on January 16, 1971. He graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the University College, Thiruvananthapuram. He attended Campus Law Centre, University of Delhi and received his LLB. In 2001 he obtained a P.G. Diploma in Intellectual Property Rights from the Indian Law Institute, Delhi. He was enrolled as an Advocate with the Bar Council of Delhi in 1999 and began practising in District Courts at Tis Hazari, Delhi and Delhi High Court and Supreme Court of India. From September 2010, he worked as Assistant Principal State Counsel with the Attorney General of Seychelles, practicing in all of the courts of Seychelles and appointed as a Senior Magistrate in 2017.
His field of work is wide and varied and includes criminal and civil cases, writ jurisdictions, public law matters, human rights, land and property, tax appeals, arbitration cases, suits, forest, environment and pollution matters, medical negligence cases, consumer cases, commercial and company law cases, industrial and financial reconstruction cases, debt recovery cases, service and labour law.
He was also actively involved in legal and rights awareness and empowerment programs for the public, social activists and human rights defenders during his practice of law in India.
He was a member of the Seychelles – Mauritius Joint Commission of the Extended Continental Shelf from 2011 till 2017 and a member of the Civil Code Reforms Committee of Seychelles. He was also part of the delegation representing Seychelles before the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) submitting its combined five periodic reports dated 10 October 2013 at United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG).
He published an article in ‘Law, Jurisprudence and Human Rights in Asia’ edited by Jefferson R Plantilla & Salbiah Ahmad, 2011 Hurights Osaka, titled ‘India: Anti-Terrorism Laws and Human Rights’. Furthermore, he was the editor for the Socio Legal Information Centre report ‘Has the Judiciary abandoned the Environment’, November 2010.
He married in 2010.