7 new judges for Madras High Court; Centre refuses 2 recommendations

The Union Law Ministry has cleared seven out of the nine names recommended for elevation to the Madras High Court by the Supreme Court Collegium in December last year.

PT Asha, M Nirmal Kumar, Subramonium Prasad, N Anand Venkatesh  GK Ilanthiraiyan, Krishnan Ramaswamy and C Saravanan will be sworn in as additional judges of the High Court.

Prasad is an Additional Advocate General for Tamil Nadu. Saravanan is a 1994 graduate of  the National Law School of India University (NLSIU) Bangalore.

The Supreme Court Collegium had recommended a total of nine names for elevation to the High Court back in December 2017. However, it seems that the Centre has failed to approve the names of Dua Associates Partner Senthil Ramamoorthy and additional public prosecutor Emiliyas.

Two other lawyers – AV Radhakrishnan and B Pugalendhi – were also recommended for elevation by the High Court collegium. However, given the fact that the former had crossed the maximum age limit of 55 years at the time of the recommendation, he was deemed to be unsuitable for elevation. The Collegium noted in its resolution that it had received certain adverse but unconfirmed inputs against Pugalendhi, and therefore, kept his elevation on hold.

The appointment of seven judges means that the Madras High Court will now have 63 judges, as against a sanctioned strength of 75.

Read the notification