In a major decision taken by the Supreme Court to fill judicial vacancies, the Supreme Court collegium on Monday cleared the names of 19 advocates for appointment as High Court judges in three High Courts. In addition, the collegium comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and two senior judges Justices J Chelameswar and Ranjan Gogoi approved the names of 25 additional judges to be made permanent.
The decision of the collegium which met on December 4 was made public on the Supreme Court website on Wednesday showing the deliberations made during the meeting. The highest lot of advocates selected for High Court judgeship came from Madras where nine lawyers made it to the bench followed by Calcutta and Karnataka HCs with five each.
Senior advocate Subramonium Prasad, practicing in the Supreme Court, is one of the nine names approved by the collegium for appointment to Madras HC. Two women lawyers also made it in the list which includes Shampa Sarkar for Calcutta High Court and PT Asha for Madras High Court. If this appointment goes through, the Madras High Court will have 12 women judges, the Court with the highest number of lady judges.
The collegium also decided not to clear the names of two lawyers — AV Radhakrishnan and B Pugalendhi for appointment as Madras HC judges.
In the first case, the lawyer had crossed the maximum age limit of 55 years and hence was rejected.
In the latter case, the collegium received certain adverse inputs which could not be verified and hence the appointment was put on hold.
In the case of lawyer Sakya Sen recommended for appointment as judge of Calcutta HC, the bench waived off the minimum age condition seeing his merit and accounting the shortage of judges in the High Court.