Govt appoints nine new high court chief justices
Sanjeev Sachdeva was appointed chief justice of the high court of Madhya Pradesh, Vibhu Bakhru to Karnataka, Ashutosh Kumar to Gauhati, Vipul Manubhai Pancholi to Patna and Tarlok Singh Chauhan to Jharkhand.
On the other hand, chief justice (CJ) Manindra Mohan Shrivastava was transferred from the High Court of Rajasthan to Madras, CJ Aparesh Kumar Singh from Tripura to Telangana, CJ M.S. Ramachandra Rao from Jharkhand to Tripura and CJ K.R. Shriram from Madras to Rajasthan.
The Supreme Court collegium recommended the elevation of justices Sachdeva, Bakhru, Kumar, Pancholi and Chauhan on 26 May this year.
On the same day, the Supreme Court collegium approved the transfers of CJ Shrivastava, Singh, Rao and Shriram.
Sachdeva is currently the acting chief justice of the Madhya Pradesh high court, and Kumar is the current acting chief justice of the Patna high court. Bakhru, Pancholi, and Chauhan are currently judges at the high courts of Delhi, Patna and Himachal Pradesh.
The Supreme Court collegium is a group of the Supreme Court's most senior judges that decides on appointments and transfers in the Indian judiciary.
The government's appointment of judges assumes importance as there were 345 vacancies of judges across the country's high courts as of June 2024, according to data from the department of justice. This indicates that roughly a third of the high court judges' positions were vacant.
Delays in appointments have forced appointees to step down from their positions, despite receiving a nod from the collegium.
For instance, on 5 July, intellectual property rights lawyer Shwetasree Majumder withdrew her consent for judgeship after the government did not appoint her as a judge of the Delhi High Court after the collegium recommended her in August 2024, reported LiveLaw, a legal news service.
As per routine procedure, high courts should make recommendations to fill a position at least six months before the vacancy is created. 'However, this time limit is rarely observed,' said law and justice minister Arjun Ram Meghwal in a Rajya Sabha disclosure in December 2024.
In May this year, then chief justice of India Sanjiv Khanna disclosed data on the Supreme Court portal related to the appointments recommended by the collegium during his tenure and that of his predecessor, Dhananjaya Chandrachud.
The data disclosed by the court on 5 May showed its collegium suggested 221 names for high court judges. Of these, eight belonged to Scheduled Castes and just seven to Scheduled Tribes. Other Backward Castes fared better with about 14.5%, or 32 nominees, while women came in at 15.3%, or 34 nominees, according to the data.
The apex court's collegium has, on multiple occasions, nominated candidates belonging to minorities or marginalized communities to the higher judiciary. In July 2024, the collegium elevated Justice N. Kotiswar Singh, who belongs to Manipur, to the Supreme Court, saying his elevation to the top court would provide representation to India's north-eastern region.
Additionally, Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai, who belongs to a Scheduled Caste, was also elevated to the Supreme Court in 2019.
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