Collegium recommends Justice Sanjay Karol as CJ of Jharkhand HC

The Supreme Court recently issued a slew of resolutions recommending new Chief Justices for various high courts. Amongst these was the resolution recommending the appointment of Justice Sanjay Karol as Chief Justice of the Jharkhand High Court.

In this resolution dated August 28, the Collegium noted that the Jharkhand High Court presently has no regular Chief Justice. Thus, it had recommended that Justice Sanjay Karol, currently Chief Justice of the Tripura High Court, be appointed as Chief Justice at Jharkhand.

However, this resolution now appears to be missing from the Supreme Court website. Whether this is a technical glitch or the Collegium has had second thoughts, is what remains to be seen.

Edit [10:40. PM]: The resolution is now available on the Supreme Court website.

Intriguingly, Wikipedia also describes Justice Karol as Chief Justice of the Jharkhand High Court with effect from September 4. This is clearly an oversight as even if the resolution were to be passed, the Centre would have to give its assent before his appointment.

The Centre had recently notified the appointment of Justice Harish Chandra Mishra as Acting Chief Justice of the Jharkhand High Court. This measure was taken following the demise of Acting Chief Justice Prashant Kumar.

Justice Sanjay Karol, whose parent high court is the Himachal Pradesh High Court, was appointed as Chief Justice of the Tripura High Court in November last year. Justice Karol enrolled as a lawyer in 1986. His areas of practice included Constitutional law, Taxation, Corporate law, Criminal law and Civil law.

He has served as the Advocate General of Himachal Pradesh between 1998 and 2003. He was designated Senior Advocate in 1999. In March 2007, he was elevated as a judge of the Himachal Pradesh High Court. In April this year, he was appointed Acting Chief Justice of the High Court. He served in this role until October 5, when Chief Justice Surya Kant Rao took charge.

Read the resolution: