Government clears appointments, 13 high courts get new CJs

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 9

Weeks after the Supreme Court Collegium’s recommendations, the Centre on Saturday notified the appointments of eight and transfer of five chief justices of high courts.

In separate notifications, the Department of Justice said the appointments and transfers shall take effect from the date the chief justices assume charge of their respective office.

According to the notifications, Acting Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court Rajesh Bindal has been appointed the new Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court, the largest High Court in the country. Besides Justice Bindal, Justices Ranjit V More of the Meghalaya HC, Satish Chandra Sharma of Karnataka HC, Prakash Srivastava of MP HC, RV Malimath of Himachal Pradesh HC, Ritu Raj Awasthi of Allahabad HC, Aravind Kumar of Karnataka HC and Prashant Kumar Mishra of Andhra Pradesh HC have been elevated as CJ of the high courts of Meghalaya, Telangana, Calcutta, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, respectively.

Those transferred included Chief Justice Mohammad Rafiq of Madhya Pradesh High Court, who would now head the Himachal Pradesh High Court as the Chief Justice.

Tripura High Court Chief Justice AA Kureshi has been transferred as Chief Justice of the Rajasthan High Court, while Justice Indrajit Mahanty, the Chief Justice of the Rajasthan High Court, would go to Tripura HC as the Chief Justice, it was officially announced.

Earlier, due to differences in the Collegium over elevation of Justice Kureshi, one of the senior-most high court judges in India, to the Supreme Court, no appointment could be made to the top court for almost two years. Chief Justice Biswanath Somadder of the Meghalaya High Court has been transferred in the same capacity to the Sikkim High Court. Chief Justice AK Goswami of the Andhra Pradesh High Court will be the new Chief Justice of the Chhattisgarh High Court.

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