Collegium recommends names for appointment CJs of 5 high courts

The Supreme Court Collegium has recommended to the Centre to appoint justices N H Patil and D K Gupta as the chief justices of the Bombay and Calcutta High Court.

Headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, the Collegium has also recommened the names of justices Ramesh Ranganathan, A S Bopanna and Vijai Kumar Bist for appointment as chief justices of the high courts of Uttarakhand, Gauhati and Sikkim respectively.

The Collegium, also comprising Justices Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph, noted in its resolutions that while Justice Patil is currently the Acting Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court, Justice Gupta is functioning as the Acting Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court.

"Office of the Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court has been lying vacant for quite some time, consequent upon retirement of Justice Manjula Chellur, Chief Justice of that High Court. Therefore, appointment to that office is required to be made," the collegium said in its resolution uploaded on the apex court website.

"It is made clear that the Collegium while making the above recommendation is conscious of the fact that Justice N H Patil hails from Bombay High Court and is due to retire in April 2019. In this connection, the Collegium has invoked the provision of the Memorandum of Procedure which provides for elevation of a puisne Judge as Chief Justice in his own High Court if he has one year or less to retire," it said.

Justice Ranganathan is the senior-most judge from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh High Court and Justice Bist is the senior-most Judge from the Uttarakhand High Court and is functioning there since his elevation, the collegium noted.

The three-member Collegium also recommended for appointment of three additional judges of the Madras High Court -- justices R M T Teeka Raman, N Sathish Kumar and N Seshasayee-- as permanent judges of that High Court.

It recommended that seven additional judges of the Karnataka High Court -- justices Kempaiah Somashekar, K Somappa Mudagal, Sreenivas H Kumar, John Michael Cunha, Basavaraj A Patil, N K Sudhindrarao and Dr H B P Sastry -- be appointed as permanent judges of that high court.

It also recommended elevation of advocates V G Arun, N Nagaresh and P V Kunhikrishnan as judges of the Kerala High Court.

The Collegium also recommended the elevation of two judicial officers, T V Anilkumar and N Anil Kumar, for appointment as the judges of the Kerala High Court.