SC collegium recommends chief justices for four HCs

Source: Hindustan Times dated 14.05.2019

NEWDELHI: The Supreme Court collegium has cleared the names of four judges as chief justices of the high courts of Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana.

According to collegium resolution — put up on the SC website, the panel of three top judges headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi decided that Justice DN Patel from Jharkhand HC will be the new chief justice of Delhi HC, Justice AA Kureshi will take over as CJ of MP HC after relinquishing his post from Bombay HC, Justice V Ramasubramanium — posted in Telangana HC — becomes the new CJ of Himachal Pradesh HC and Justice RS Chauhan, who is acting CJ of Telangana HC, has been confirmed as CJ in the same court.

The collegium made the recommendation to the Centre on Friday after the three judges held a meeting. Two of the appointments – Delhi and MP HCs – have been made in advance as the present incumbents retire in June. While Justice Rajendra COLLEGIUM CLEARED THE NAMES OF CHIEF JUSTICES FOR HCs OF DELHI, HIMACHAL, MP AND TELANGANA Menon of Delhi HC retires on June 6, CJ of MP HC Justice SK Seth will retire on June 9.

The collegium proposal to elevate Justice Ramasubramanium as Himachal Pradesh CJ follows its recent decision to promote the present CJ, Justice Suryakant, as a judge of the SC. While making the above recommendation, the collegium has also taken into consideration the fact that at present only one judge from Madras is heading a HC as chief justice.

The SC collegium had last week nominated four judges of the HC as SC judges, while reiterating its earlier resolution to promote Justice Aniruddh Bose to the top court after the Centre asked the panel to reconsider his candidature. Besides, the collegium – which in the case of SC appointments comprises five senior judges of the top court – had forwarded names of justices AS Boppana, Suryakant and BR Gavai to the Centre for elevating them. The NDA government is yet to notify the new appointments for SC. Once they are, the strength of judges in the SC will go up to 31 from 29.

CJI IN VACATION BENCH

For the first time in over 15 years Chief Justice of India would be heading a vacation bench in the SC. The SC summer break started on Monday and it will resume work on July 3. As has been the practice vacation benches would hear urgent cases on daily basis. As per the roster released by the SC registry, one vacation bench would sit every day. From May 13 to 20th, the bench will be headed by Justice Indira Banerjee, Justice Arun Mishra (May 21-24) and CJI Ranjan Gogoi (May 25-30).

In the past, only Chief Justice of India S Rajendra Babu sat during the vacations. However, unlike CJI Gogoi, he had a very short tenure of 29 days as the CJI, major part of which fell during the summer vacation. He was the CJI from May 2 to May 31, 2004.