Calcutta High Court to get six new judges from the Bar

The Calcutta High Court is finally set to get six new judges. The six lawyers who are being elevated are:

1. Rajshekhar Mantha
2. Sabyashachi Bhattacharyya
3. Protik Prokash Banerji
4. Mousumi Bhattacharyya
5. Rajjoshri Bharadwaj
6. Shekhar B Saraf

The Centre has approved six of the seven names recommended by the Supreme Court collegium as judges of the Calcutta High Court, and pro formas were sent to these six, reported ToI.

Earlier, there were news reports that the Union Law Ministry had acted on files recommending the appointment of five new judges to Calcutta High Court. However, it now appears that the government has now cleared six names for elevation to the bench.

This move by the Centre to act on approving these appointments comes after some scathing observations were made by the High Court regarding the failure of the Centre in appointing judges to the High Court.

The observations were made by a Bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Debi Prosad Dey in an anticipatory bail application of a Bengali Film Actor, Bikram Chatterjee.

Presently, a mere 31 judges are functioning at the High Court as against a sanctioned strength of 72. These appointments will reduce the vacancies – which now stand at 41 – to 35, less than half of the sanctioned strength.