SC Collegium recommends 20 additional HC judges for permanent judgeship

The Supreme Court Collegium headed by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud on Wednesday recommended to the Centre the names of 20 additional judges for making them permanent judges in high courts of Allahabad, Mumbai, Madras and Delhi.

Of the 20 names, the maximum 10 have been recommended for the Allahabad HC by the three-member Collegium, also comprising justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and KM Joseph. The Collegiums recommended five for the Madras High Court, four for the Bombay High Court and one for the Delhi High Court.

"The Collegium resolves to recommend that S/Shri Justices (1) Chandra Kumar Rai, (2) Krishan Pahal, (3) Sameer Jain, (4) Ashutosh Srivastava, (5) Subhash Vidyarthi, (6) Brij Raj Singh, (7) Shree Prakash Singh, (8) Vikas Budhwar, (9) Om Prakash Tripathi, and (10) Vikram D. Chauhan, Additional Judges, be appointed as Permanent Judges of the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad against the existing vacancies," a resolution uploaded on the apex court website said.

In another resolution, the Collegium recommended the names of additional judges -- Justices Sundaram Srimathy, D Bharatha Chakravarthy, R Vijayakumar, Mohammed Shaffiq and J Sathya Narayana Prasad -- for appointment as permanent Judges of the Madras High Court.

In a separate resolution for the Bombay High Court, the Collegiums said it has

recommend that Justices Rajesh Narayandas Laddha, Sanjay Ganpatrao Mehare, Govinda Ananda Sanap, and Shivkumar Ganpatrao Dige, be appointed as permanent judges.

In a meeting held on Wednesday, the Collegium also decided to recommend the name of additional judge Justice Amit Sharma for appointment as permanent judge of the Delhi High Court.

The top court Collegiums came out with detailed resolutions giving the procedures undertaken for finalising the names for permanent judgeship.

"On 23 November 2022, the Collegium of the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad unanimously recommended the above-named ten Additional Judges for appointment as Permanent Judges of that High Court. The Chief Minister and the Governor of Uttar Pradesh have concurred with the above recommendation," it said.

In order to ascertain the fitness and suitability of the above-named additional judges for being appointed as permanent judges, consultation was held with a view to ascertain their suitability for elevation in terms of the Memorandum of Procedure, with Judges of the Supreme Court conversant with the affairs of the Allahabad High Court, the resolution said.

"With a view to assess the merit and suitability of the above-named Additional Judges for their appointment as Permanent Judges, the Collegium has scrutinized and evaluated the material placed on record including the observations made by the Department of Justice in the file," the resolution said.

The Collegium followed the same procedure and gave details as to how it approved names for permanent judgeship in Bombay, Madras and Delhi HCs.