The Madras High Court is expected to have 15 new judges by next week, with the Centre forwarding their names to the President for his signature on their warrants of appointment.
These 15 names are part of a batch of 24 cleared by the Supreme Court Collegium in July. Of the 15, nine are from among lawyers and six from the subordinate judiciary. The presidential clearance is likely to be given by next week. The nine lawyers are V. Parthiban, R. Subramaniam, M. Govindaraj, M. Sundar, R. Sureshkumar, Ms. Nisha Banu, M.S. Ramesh, S.M. Subramaniam and Dr. Anita Sumanth. The six district judges are S. Baskaran, Basheer Ahmed, G. Jayachandran, C.V. Karthikeyan, R.M.T. Teeka Raman and N. Seshasayee.
The government has sought additional inputs from the IB on the remaining nine of the 24 names cleared by the Collegium.
All these names are part of a list of 30 forwarded by the Madras High Court Collegium in February. The High Court’s list contained 19 lawyers and 11 district judges. Four advocates and two district judges were dropped by the Supreme Court Collegium at a meeting on July 21. Government clearance of the names was held up by the ongoing process of drafting the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) for judicial appointments. However, the government acted on the files, given the increasing number of vacancies in the Madras High Court.
The government has so far cleared 35 of the 74 names referred by the Supreme Court Collegium for appointment and transfer to the High Courts. A confidential status report detailing the progress made by the government on the list of 74 was recently submitted by Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi to the Supreme Court. Justice Girish Chandra Gupta of the Calcutta High Court was recently appointed as its new Chief Justice. The High Court was without a Chief Justice after Justice Manjula Chellur was transferred to the Bombay High Court as its Chief Justice.
Justice Shantanagoudar Mohan Mallikarjunagouda of the Kerala High Court has been elevated as its Chief Justice. Justices Satish Kumar Agnihotri, Tinlianthang Vaiphei and Rakesh Ranjan, the sitting judges of the Sikkim, Tripura and Manipur High Courts, have been elevated as the Chief Justices of their courts.