13 High Courts to get new CJs; 17 HC judges transferred

Tribune News Service

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New Delhi, September 21

As many as 13 high courts will get new chief justices and 17 judges of various high courts will be transferred as the Supreme Court Collegium’s recommendations to this effect made on September 16 were made public on Tuesday.

Eight of the high court chief justices will be new while five other high court chief justice have been transferred.

According to the recommendations of the Collegium led by CJI NV Ramana – which has already been reported—acting chief justice of the Calcutta High Court, Justice Rajesh Bindal, will be elevated as the Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court, if the Centre accepts the recommendation.

Besides Justice Bindal, the Collegium has recommended names of Justices Ranjit V More, Satish Chandra Sharma, Prakash Srivastava, RV Malimath, Ritu Raj Awasthi, Aravind Kumar and Prashant Kumar Mishra for elevation as CJ of the high courts of Meghalaya, Telangana, Calcutta, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, respectively.

Tripura High Court CJ AA Kureshi has been recommended to be transferred as CJ of the Rajsathan High Court, while Justice Indrajit Mahanty, the CJ of Rajasthan High Court, would go to Tripura HC as the CJ, the Collegium recommended.

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 Mohammad Rafiq of Madhya Pradesh High Court has been recommended to head the Himachal Pradesh HC as the CJ, it said, adding that Chief Justice Biswanath Somadder of Meghalaya High Court would be transferred in the same capacity to the Sikkim High Court.

Chief Justice AK Goswami of the Andhra Pradesh High Court has been recommended to become the CJ of the Chhattisgarh High Court, the statement said.

The Collegium has also recommended “transfer/re-transfer” of 17 high court judges. They are: justices Jaswant Singh, Sabina, TS Sivagnanam, Sanjaya Kumar Mishra, MM Shrivastava, Soumen Sen, Ahsanuddin Amanullah, Ujjal Bhuyan, Paresh R Upadhyay, MSS Ramachandra Rao, Arindam Sinha, AM Badar, Yashwant Varma, Vivek Agarwal, Chandra Dhari Singh, Anoop Chitkara and Ravi Nath Tilhari.

As on September 1, 2021, the 25 high courts having 1098 sanctioned strength of judges had 465 vacancies and many of the high courts didn’t have regular chief justices.

However, after Justice Ramana took over as the 48th CJI on April 24, the Supreme Court collegium has recommended 82 names to various high courts for appointment as judges.

Ending a two-year-long deadlock, the Collegium had last month recommended nine names, including those of three woman high court judges for elevation to the top court, taking its strength to 33 – one short of its sanctioned strength of 34.