Who is Amit Mehta, the Indian-born judge who ruled 'Google has an illegal monopoly on search'?
In a major blow to the search engine giant Google, a US court has ruled that it illegally maintains a monopoly over internet search. In the landmark ruling, the court held that Google has been illegally exploiting its dominance as a search engine to squash competition and stifle innovation.
The ruling, which could pose an existential threat to Google's business model, was delivered by US District Judge Amit Mehta on Monday.
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Who is Judge Amit Mehta
Judge Amit Priyavadan Mehta was born in Patan, Gujarat, in 1971 and migrated to the US when he was just one year old. In the US, the family settled in Reisterstown, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore, where his mother, Ragini Mehta, worked as a laboratory technician, while his father, Priyavadan, worked as an engineer.
Mehta received his BA in Political Science and Economics from Georgetown University in 1993 and his JD (Juris Doctor, a professional degree to practise law) from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1997.
Career before becoming a judge
Mehta started his career as a legal assistant in 1993 at the law firm Patton Boggs but returned to academics a year later. He worked as an associate at several law firms until 2002, when he was appointed as a staff attorney at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, where he served until 2007. His practice focused on white-collar criminal defence, complex business disputes, and appellate advocacy.
Nominated by?Barack Obama
Mehta was nominated as a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia by then-President Barack Obama in July 2014.
Key rulings of?Judge Mehta
In his career spanning a decade, Judge Mehta has been part of many key cases in recent US history. This included a May 2019 ruling that the accounting firm Mazars had to provide its records of Donald Trump's accounts from before his presidency to the House Oversight Committee.
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Judge Mehta has also presided over several cases related to the January 6 Capitol Hill attacks. It was Judge Mehta who, in February 2022, rejected Trump's claim of "absolute immunity" from lawsuits in connection with the Capitol Hill riots.
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