Collegium Resolutions: 37 additional judges across 5 HCs recommended to be made permanent

The Supreme Court Collegium has recommended the appointment of as many as thirty-seven additional judges from five different high courts as permanent judges.

Additional judges from the High Courts of Bombay, Gujarat, Kerala, Rajasthan and Allahabad will be made permanent, pending the Centre’s assent.

Six additional judges from the Bombay High Court – Justices Prakash Deu Naik, Makarand Subhash Karnik, Swapna Sanjiv Joshi, Kishor Kalesh Sonawane, Sangitrao Shamrao Patil, and Nutan Dattaram Sardessai – have been recommended to be made permanent. They were appointed as additional judges of the High Court in March 2016.

All seven additional judges of the Gujarat High Court have been recommended to be made permanent. Apart from Justices RP Dholaria, Ashutosh J Shastri, Biren A Vaishnav, Alpesh Y Kogje, Arvindsingh I Supehia, and BN Karia, Justice KJ Thaker, who was transferred to the Allahabad High Court, has also been recommended to be made a permanent judge. Thaker J will continue to serve at the Allahabad High Court.

From the Kerala High Court, Justices Sathish Ninan, Devan Ramachandran, P Somarajan, V Shircy, and AM Babu have been recommended to be made permanent judges. They were appointed as additional judges in October 2016.

Ten additional judges of the Rajasthan High Court are recommended to be made permanent judges. They are Justices Ganga Ram Moolchandani, Deepak Maheshwari, Vijay Kumar Vyas, Goverdhan Bardhar, Pankaj Bhandari, Dinesh Chandra Somani, Sanjeev Prakash Sharma, Dr. Pushpendra Singh Bhati, Dinesh Mehta, and Vinit Kumar Mathur. The first six were appointed in April 2016, while the latter four judges were appointed in November of that year.

Nine of the ten additional judges recommended by the Allahabad High Court have received the green signal to become permanent judges by the Supreme Court Collegium. While Justices Rajul Bhargava, Siddhartha Varma, Sangeeta Chandra, Daya Shankar Tripathi, Shailendra Kumar Agrawal, Sanjay Harkauli, Krishna Pratap Singh, Rekha Dikshit, and Satya Narain Agnihotri have been recommended, the Collegium felt that Justice Virendra Kumar-II “needs to be observed for some more time”.

As of February 1, there are a total of 181 additional judges across the 24 high courts in the country, with 127 posts sanctioned for additional judges remaining vacant.

Read the resolutions:

Allahabad HC

Bombay HC

Gujarat HC

Kerala HC

Rajasthan HC