NEW DELHI: At a time when seven of the country’s 25 high courts are without regular chief justices, the Supreme Court collegium, headed by CJI Surya Kant, recommended the names of four HC judges to the government for their appointment as CJs of the Bombay, Calcutta, Patna, and Punjab and Haryana HCs.The collegium recommended appointment of Justice Mahesh Chandra Tripathi, a judge of Allahabad HC, as CJ of Bombay HC; Justice Ravindra V Ghuge, acting CJ of Bombay HC, as CJ of Calcutta HC; Justice V Kameshwar Rao, a judge of Delhi HC, as CJ of Patna HC; and acting CJ Punjab and Haryana HC Justice Ashwini Kumar Mishra – whose parent high court is Allahabad HC – as regular CJ of that HC.The collegium is yet to decide on selecting judges for appointment as regular CJs to HCs of Rajasthan, J&K and Madhya Pradesh, which are manned by acting CJs – Justices Sanjeev Prakash Sharma, Sanjeev Kumar and Vivek Rusia, respectively.The five-member collegium comprising CJI Kant and Justices Vikram Nath, BV Nagarathna, MM Sundresh and PS Narasimha met separately to recommend the government the transfer of Orissa HC judges Justices Manas Ranjan Pathan and Krushna Ram Mohapatra to Gujarat and Chhattisgarh high courts, respectively, for better administration of justice.
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Orissa HC has a sanctioned strength of 33 judges but at present it has 17 judges, including the CJ. When these two transfers take effect, the working strength will go down to 15, creating a vacancy of more than 50% of the posts of judges in the HC.Orissa HC Collegium had suggested eight names – four advocates and four judicial officers – for the consideration and scrutiny by SC Collegium and consequent recommendations for appointment as judges of the HC.Since the retirement of CJI Deepak Misra on Oct 2, 2018 – whose tenure towards the end was mired by the controversy of four-most senior SC judges led by Justice J Chelameswar holding an unprecedented presser against the sitting CJI – more than 50 judges have been appointed to SC but Orissa HC has not got representation in the last eight years despite successive CJIs advocating regional and state representation in the top court to make it a truly a national court.
