Karnataka lawyers push for two more elevations to HC; to meet CJI, PM

Two weeks after lawyers in Bangalore successfully organised to prompt the Central government to sign off on the appointment of five new judges to the Karnataka High Court, they are now pushing for two more elevations in order to further bring down the number of vacancies..The Advocates Association of Bengaluru, the Karnataka State Bar Council, and a host of Senior Advocates led by BV Acharya are urging the authorities to assent to the elevation of two more lawyers– HT Narendra Prasad and PM Nawaz – to the Bench. According to sources, these two lawyers have been recommended for elevation by the Supreme Court Collegium, and are awaiting the Centre’s approval..To this end, they have proposed to send a delegation of lawyers to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and other Collegium judges, as well as the Supreme Court judges hailing from Karnataka – Justices Mohan M Shantanagoudar and S Abdul Nazeer and Attorney General for India KK Venugopal..Two weeks after these meetings take place, the lawyers have also resolved to meet Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court Justice Dinesh Maheshwari with a view to filling up the remaining vacancies at the High Court..Consequent upon the elevation of Krishna S Dixit, Ramakrishna Devdas, BM Shyam Prasad, Shankar Ganapathi Pandit and S Sunil Dutt Yadav as additional judges of the High Court, the number of vacancies has reduced to 32, as against a sanctioned strength of 62. The High Court is still functioning at half its strength, and three judges are expected to retire over the course of the next seven months..Read the resolution: