In a significant step to fill vacancies in the higher judiciary, the Supreme Court Collegium headed by Chief Justice N.V. Ramana on Monday approved and recommended to the Centre the proposal for the elevation of 20 advocates and 15 judicial officers as judges in six High Courts.
The collegium, which also comprises Justices Uday Umesh Lalit and A.M. Khanwilkar, approved the proposal for the elevation of a maximum of 13 advocates as judges in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, followed by the elevation of six advocates for the Telangana High Court.
“The collegium in its meeting has approved the proposal for elevation of the following (13) advocates as judges in the Punjab and Haryana High Court” and they are Nidhi Gupta, Sanjay Vashisth, Tribhuvan Dahiya, Namit Kumar, Harkesh Manuja, Aman Chaudhary, Naresh Singh, Harsh Bunger, Jagmohan Bansal, Deepak Manchanda, Alok Jain, Harpreet Singh Brar, and Kuldeep Tiwari.
Names of six lawyers for the judgeship in the Telangana High Court were also recommended by the collegium and they are “Enugula Venkata Venugopal, Nagesh Bheemapaka, Pulla Karthik @ P. Elamadhar, Kaja Sarath @ K. Sharath, Jaggannagari Sreenivasa Rao @ J. Srinivas Rao, and Namavarapu Rajeshwar Rao,” the resolutions of the collegium, uploaded on the apex court website, said.
Woman lawyer Suman Pattanayak was also recommended as a judge of the Orissa High Court, a statement said.
Out of 15 judicial officers, nine names were recommended to the Centre for the judgeship in the Calcutta High Court and they are Biswaroop Chowdhury, Partha Sarathi Sen, Prasenjit Biswas, Uday Kumar, Ajay Kumar Gupta, Supratim Bhattacharya, Partha Sarathi Chatterjee, Apurba Sinha Ray, and Md. Shabbar Rashidi.
Two women judicial officers — Susmita Phukan Khaund and Mitali Thakuria — have been recommended for the judgeship in the Gauhati High Court.
“The collegium in its meeting has approved the proposal for elevation of the following judicial officers as judges in the Orissa High Court: Gourishankar Satapathy, and Chitta Ranjan Dash,” one of the seven collegium resolutions said.
The collegium also recommended the names of two judicial officers, Sushil Kukreja and Virender Singh, as Himachal Pradesh High court judges, the resolution said.
Recently on July 20, the CJI-led collegium approved the proposal for the elevation of 21 judicial officers as judges in the different High Courts.
