Wednesday, 22 September 2021 | PNS | New Delhi
SC Collegium elevates 8, transfers 5
The Supreme Court Collegium on Tuesday officially released its recommendations that would see as many as 13 High Courts getting new Chief Justices, with eight being elevated and five incumbents getting transferred.
This apart, the Collegium also recommended the transfer of 17 High Court judges. The recommendations need the Centre’s assent.
The Collegium, headed by Chief Justice NV Ramana and consisting Justices UU Lalit and AM Khanwilkar, recommended the elevation of Justices Rajesh Bindal, Ranjit V More, Satish Chandra Sharma, Prakash Srivastava, RV Malimath, Ritu Raj Awasthi, Aravind Kumar and Prashant Kumar Mishra as Chief Justices of the High Courts of Allahabad, Meghalaya, Telangana, Calcutta, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh respectively.
In another statement, uploaded on the SC website, the apex court provided the list of five Chief Justices who have been transferred to other high courts. AA Kureshi, CJ of Tripura High Court, has been recommended to become CJ of the Rajasthan High Court, while Justice Indrajit Mahanty, the CJ of Rajasthan High Court, would go to Tripura HC as the CJ, it said.
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.
Justice Bindal of Calcutta High Court has been in news recently due to his administrative and judicial decisions in matters related to political stand-off between the BJP and the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal.
Justice Kureshi, one of the senior-most high court judges in the country, was originally elevated as a judge in the Gujarat High Court and has been in news due to his non-elevation as a judge of the apex court.
As per the third statement uploaded on the apex court’s website, the Collegium, in its meeting held on September 16, has recommended “transfer/re-transfer” 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
The Collegium has been taking steps by recommending names to fill up a large number of vacancies in higher judiciary in the country. After assuming charge as the CJI in April this year, Justice Ramana has recommended nearly 100 names for appointment to different High Courts, besides filling up nine vacancies of judges in the Supreme Court in one go.
The 25 High Courts in the country have a combined sanctioned strength of 1,080 judges and on May 1, 2021, they were functioning with 420 judges only. The series of recommendations has been made close on the heels of a historic decision to recommend 68 names in one go for judgeship in 12 high courts across the country.
Prior to that, in a historic decision on August 17, the Collegium headed by the CJI had recommended nine names, including three women, for elevation as judges of the Supreme Court.
