Obama re-nominates 3 Indian-Americans for federal judgeship

US President Barack Obama has re-nominated three Indian-Americans for federal judgeship.

Obama sent the re-nomination proposals to the Senate yesterday along with the names of 64 others for federal judgeship.

The three Indian-Americans include Vince Girdhari Chhabria, for the northern district of California; Manish S Shah, for the US District Judge for the northern district of Illinois; Indira Talwani for US District Judge for the district of Massachusetts.

Chhabria is currently working as the Deputy City Attorney for Government litigation and as the co-chief of Appellate litigation at the San Francisco City Attorney's Office, where he has worked since 2005.

Once confirmed, Chhabria would be the first South Asian Article III judge in California and the fourth South Asian Article III judge in the nation following Amul Thapar at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, Cathy Bissoon at the US District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, and Sri Srinivasan at the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.

An Assistant US Attorney in the northern district of Illinois since 2001, New York-born Manish Shah currently serves as chief of the Criminal Division, having previously served as chief of Criminal Appeals from 2011 to 2012.

Shah was also deputy chief of the Financial Crimes and Special Prosecutions Section from 2008 to 2011 and deputy chief of the General Crimes Section from 2007 to 2008.

Talwani is a partner at law firm Segal Roitman llP in Boston, where she focuses her practice on civil litigation at the state and federal trial court and appellate levels.

Once confirmed, she would be the first South Asian justice in the First Circuit.