Central government clears appointment of Senior Advocate KV Viswanathan, Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra as Supreme Court judges

The Central government on Thursday cleared the appointment of Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Senior Advocate KV Viswanathan as judges of the Supreme Court..The notification announcing the appointment was published on the website of the Union Law Ministry's Department of Justice. The two will be sworn in as judges at 10.30 am on May 19, Friday.The swearing in ceremony will be streamed live on the website of the Supreme Court of India.The Supreme Court Collegium had recommended their appointment by way of a resolution on May 16. The collegium headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and comprising Justices SK Kaul, KM Joseph, Ajay Rastogi, and Sanjiv Khanna considered that there was only one member from the bar directly appointed to the Supreme Court bench while making the recommendation."In their considered opinion, Mr KV Viswanathan, Senior Advocate is eminently suitable for being appointed as a Judge of the Supreme Court," the resolution read..Viswanathan was born on May 16, 1966 and on his appointment as a judge of the Supreme Court, he will serve in that capacity until May 25, 2031.On the retirement of Justice JB Pardiwala on August 11, 2030, he will be in line to assume Chief Justice of India's office till his retirement on May 25, 2031..On his appointment being cleared by the Central government, Senior Counsel Viswanathan will be the tenth name in the list of lawyers to be appointed to the Supreme Court directly from the Bar.The other judges who were appointed directly from the Bar are Justices SM Sikri, SC Roy, Kuldip Singh, Santosh Hegde, Rohinton Nariman, UU Lalit, L Nageswara Rao, Indu Malhotra, and PS Narasimha.He will also be the fourth such person to become the Chief Justice of India (CJI), following Justices SM Sikri, UU Lalit, and PS Narasimha..Viswanathan, a former Additional Solicitor General, has been in the profession for more than 30 years and has appeared in a number of high profile matters.Coming from a family of lawyers, he attended the Law College at Coimbatore in the first batch of the five year course that graduated in 1988. During the entirety of the five years, he attended the chambers of advocate KA Ramachandran, a criminal trial lawyer at Coimbatore..After enrolment, he moved to New Delhi and joined the chambers of Senior Advocate CS Vaidyanathan who subsequently served as an Additional Solicitor General of India.In 1990, he moved to the chambers of Senior Advocate KK Venugopal who later became the Attorney General for IndiaViswanathan worked there for nearly 5 years.In April 2009, he was designated as Senior Advocate by the Supreme court..Justice Mishra is currently the Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court.Justice Mishra was appointed as the Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court on October 13, 2021.He is former Acting Chief Justice of Chhattisgarh High Court and has also served as Judge of the Chhattisgarh High Court..The top court currently has a sanctioned strength of thirty-four judges and is presently functioning with thirty-two.Further, four more vacancies are going to arise by the second week of July..Read our interview with KV Viswanathan here..[Read appointment notification]