Five new judges take oath at Kerala High Court, vacancies down to two

Five judicial officers were sworn-in today as Kerala High Court Judges, bringing down the number of vacancies at the High Court Bench to two.

Kerala High Court Chief Justice Nitin Jamdar administered the oath office at the event to Justices Paramesara Panicker Krishna Kumar, Kodassery Veliyath Madom Jayakumar, Muralee Krishna Shankaramoole, Jobin Sebastian and Pandikkaran Varadaraja Iyer Balakrishnan.

Advocate General Gopalakrishna Kurup and President of the Kerala High Court Advocates Association (KHCAA), Advocate Yeshwanth Shenoy also spoke at the event and welcomed the new judges, emphasising the significance of their appointments and expressing hope for their valuable contributions to Kerala’s judiciary.

AG Kurup also criticised the Central government for its delay in clearing Collegium recommendations for the appointment of High Court judges, given that the Supreme Court Collegium had to recommend the appointment of Justice PP Krishna Kumar twice before the Centre cleared the file.

The Kerala High Court Collegium had recommended the elevation of four of the newly sworn-in judges in May 2024 and the same was recommended by the Supreme Court Collegium by way of a resolution dated October 15.

While four of the five were recommended by the SC Collegium for the first time on October 15, the name of PP Krishna Kumar had been first recommended by the Supreme Court Collegium in October last year.

Since the 2023 proposal had not been cleared by the Central government at the time, the Collegium reiterated Justice Kumar's name via the October 15 resolution passed this year.

The Central government thereafter on cleared the appointment of all the five judicial officers as additional judges of the Kerala High Court.

With the latest appointments, the Kerala High Court is functioning with 45 judges as against a sanctioned strength of 47.