Judiciary Watch: Collegium in full swing as registrar general, retd. district judge among new HC judges

It has been a busy couple of months for Chief Justice of India TS Thakur’s collegium. After the recent appointment of 25 additional judges in various high courts, this week, the Ministry of Law and Justice announced the appointment of 13 more judges..Six judges were appointed to the Madras High Court, including former registrar general of the High Court, P Kalaiyarasan. The other appointees are V Bharathidasan, D Krishnakumar, SS Sundar, MV Muralidaran and B Gokuldas..This takes the strength of the High Court to 42, with the transfers of Rajiv Shakhder and HG Ramesh from the Delhi and Allahabad High Courts respectively..At the Rajasthan High Court, the Bench saw seven appointed as additional judges. Among these are former district and sessions judge, Kailash Chandra Sharma. Sharma, who attained the retirement age of 60 in December 2015, has been appointed as an additional judge, as per the powers of the President under Article 224 of the Constitution. He will serve as a judge till December next year..In addition to these appointments, a total of 25 additional judges from the high courts of Chhattisgarh, Calcutta and Kerala have been made permanent judges. Further, the Bombay High Court saw the appointment of 6 new additional judges, whereas the Manipur High Court has one new additional judge..And the collegium’s progress will show no signs of abating in the weeks to come. CJI Thakur recently revealed in a conference that another 163 judges will be appointed within six weeks. If the rate of appointments continue, the 400-odd vacancies in the high courts will get filled up sooner rather than later..Here is the list of the additional judges made permanent:.Here is the list of the newly appointed additional judges: