Punjab and Haryana High Court Chief Justice among 5 judges appointed to Supreme Court

The Centre has notified the appointment of four high court chief justices, including Punjab and Haryana High Court Chief Justice Sheel Nagu, and senior advocate V. Mohana as judges of the Supreme Court.

The other three newly appointed Supreme Court judges are Bombay High Court Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar, Madhya Pradesh High Court Chief Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva and Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court Chief Justice Arun Palli.

They will be administered the oath of office by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Tuesday, sources said.

Union Minister of State for Law and Justice Arjun Ram Meghwal on Monday took to ‘X’ to convey his best wishes to the newly appointed Supreme Court judges.

Born on January 1, 1965, Justice Nagu became an advocate in October 1987 and was appointed an additional judge of the Madhya Pradesh High Court in May 2011 and made a permanent judge in May 2013.

Born in Ranchi on May 25, 1965, Justice Chandrashekar obtained his law degree from Campus Law Centre of the Delhi University and enrolled as an advocate with the Delhi Bar Council in 1993. He was elevated as an additional judge of the Jharkhand High Court in January 2013 and became a permanent judge in June 2014.

Born on December 26, 1964, Justice Sachdeva graduated from Sri Ram College of Commerce and obtained his LL.B. degree from Campus Law Centre, Delhi University. He was appointed an additional judge of the Delhi High Court in April 2013 and became a permanent judge in March 2015.

Born in Patiala on September 18, 1964, Justice Palli graduated in law from Panjab University in 1988 and was appointed as a judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in December 2013.

Born on June 27, 1966, Justice Mohana graduated from Coimbatore Law College, Tamil Nadu in 1988.

She became an advocate-on-record at the Supreme Court in 1996 and was designated a senior advocate by the Supreme Court in 2015.

Justice Mohana’s will be the first appointment of a woman judge in the Supreme Court since August 2021. It will take the number of women judges to two in the Supreme Court which presently has only one woman judge—Justice BV Nagarathna.

Justice Mohana is only the second woman in India to be directly elevated to the top court from the Bar after Justice Indu Malhotra in 2018 and the 11^th advocate to be directly elevated to the Supreme Court. Earlier, Justices SM Sikri, SC Roy, Kuldip Singh, Santosh Hegde, Rohinton Nariman, UU Lalit, L Nageswara Rao, Indu Malhotra, PS Narasimha and KV Viswanathan were directly elevated from the Bar as Supreme Court judges.

She will be the 12^th woman judge in the history of the Supreme Court. Her predecessor woman judges included Justices Fatima Beevi, Sujata Manohar, Ruma Pal, Gyan Sudha Mishra, Ranjana Desai, R Bhanumathi, Indu Malhotra, Indira Banerjee, Hima Kohli, Bela Trivedi and BV Nagarathna.

On May 27 May, the Supreme Court Collegium led by CJI Kant had recommended their elevation to the top court. These appointments will take the number of judges in the Supreme Court from the present 32 to 37 judges.

Four more Supreme Court judges are due to retire later this year.

The Collegium’s recommendation had come barely 10 days after President Droupadi Murmu promulgated an Ordinance to increase the number of Supreme Court Judges from 34 to 38, including the CJI.

In an important decision, the Union Cabinet had on May 5 approved a proposal to increase the number of judges in the Supreme Court from 34 judges to 38 judges (including the CJI)

The Government maintained that the increase in the number of judges will allow the Supreme Court to function more efficiently and effectively, ensuring speedy justice.

As of March 31, 2026, the total pendency in the Supreme Court touched a record high of 93,143 cases.