Supreme Court Collegium recommends nine names to fill up judges vacancies

Supreme Court Collegium recommends nine names to fill up judges vacancies

If accepted by the government, India may get its first-ever woman Chief Justice in six years in Justice Nagarathna

After the unusual delay of approximately, the Supreme Court of India has moved to fill the piled up vacancies of judges in the Apex Court.

The Supreme Court Collegium comprising Chief Justice N.V. Ramana, Justices U.U. Lalit, A.M. Khanwilkar, D.Y. Chandrachud and L. Nageswara Rao has recommended to the central government nine names that include three women High Court judges.

If the Supreme Court Collegium recommendation is accepted by the government, India may get its first-ever woman chief justice in Justice B.V. Nagarathna in about six years. Justice Nagarathna is the incumbent judge of the Karnataka High Court.

Besides her, the other two women judges in the proposed panel are Justice Hima Kohli, Chief Justice of the Telangana High Court and Justice Bela Trivedi of the Gujarat High Court.

The other name appearing in the recommended panel include Senior Advocate P.S. Narasimha, the former Additional Solicitor General, for the rare bar to the bench appointment.

The panel has names of three incumbent chief justices of High Courts, namely Justice A.S. Oka of Karnataka High Court, Justice Vikram Nath, Gujarat High Court and Justice Jitendra Kumar Maheshwari, Sikkim High Court for elevation to the Supreme Court.

The second senior-most Judge of Kerala High Court Justice C.T. Ravikumar and the third most senior judge of the Madras High Court Justice M.M. Sundaresh are the other judges recommended by the collegium.

The Supreme Court Collegium was witnessing a deadlock on the possible elevation of two senior-most sitting High Court chief justices, namely Chief Justice A.S. Oka of Karnataka High Court and Chief Justice Akil Kureshi of Tripura High Court. Justice Kureshi figures as the second senior-most High Court chief justice after Justice Oka. While the recently retired Justice Rohinton F Nariman, who was a member of the Supreme Court Collegium, insisted on following the rule books of recommending senior-most High Court chief justices for elevation, the former Chief Justice of India S.A. Bobde and other members of the Collegium did not agree with him for unexplained reasons. Justice Nageswara Rao replaced Justice Nariman upon his retirement in the Collegium and within days of his retirement, the newly constituted Collegium met and finalised nine names, deciding on the contentious supersession of Kureshi.