Former Supreme Court judge Shivaraj V Patil, who was appointed as a one-man committee to look into the procedures involved in the grant of telecom licences and spectrum allocation from 2001 to 2009, was born on 12th January 1940, at Maladkai, Raichur District.

On completing his law education he joined the bar at Gulbarga, the Divisional Headquarters in Hyderabad, Karnataka Area in 1962 practicing both on criminal and civil cases till he shifted his parctice at the Karnataka high court in 1979.

Simultaneously, he also served from 1975 to 1978 as honorary pricipal of Seth Shankarlal Lahoti Law College, in Gulbarga where he had been a part-time lecturer since 1967.

Having had experience on original and appellate sides, he was elevated as Judge, High Court of Karnataka at Bangalore in 1990 and was  transferred to High Court at Madras, where he served till his appointment as acting chief justice of High Court of Madras in 1998.

Justice Patil was appoitnted chief justice of High Court of Rajasthan on in 1999, before being elevated to the Supreme Court on 15 March 2000.

Justice Patil retired on 11 January 2005.