New Delhi, July 25
In a significant move to fill vacancies in the higher judiciary, the Supreme Court Collegium headed by Chief Justice NV Ramana on Monday approved a proposal for promotion of 20 advocates and 15 judicial officers as judges in six high courts and recommended to the Centre.
The collegium, which also includes Justices Uday Umesh Lalit and AM Khanwilkar, approved a proposal for promotion of a maximum of 13 advocates as judges in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, followed by the promotion of six advocates to the Telangana High Court.
“The Supreme Court Collegium in its meeting held on July 25 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.
The names of six advocates for justice in the Telangana High Court were also recommended by the collegium and they are “Nugula Venkata Venugopal, Nagesh Bhimapaka, Pula Karthik @ P. Elmadhar, Kaza Sarath @ K. Sharath, Jagannagari Srinivasa Rao @ J. Srinivasa Rao, and Namvarapu Rajeshwara Rao,” the collegium proposals, uploaded on the apex court’s website, said.
A statement said the collegium had also recommended Suman Patnaik, a woman advocate, as a judge of the Orissa High Court on July 25.
Out of 15 judicial officers, nine names were recommended to the Center for Justice in the Calcutta High Court and they were Biswaroop Choudhary, Partha Sarathi Sen, Prasenjit Biswas, Uday Kumar, Ajay Kumar Gupta, Supratim Bhattacharya, Partha Sarathi Chatterjee, Apoorva Sinha. Huh. Ray, and Mohammed Shabbar Rashidi.
The collegium has recommended two women judicial officers – Sushmita Phukan Khand and Mithali Thakuria – as judges in the Gauhati HC.
One of the seven resolutions of the Collegium states, “The Supreme Court Collegium in its meeting held on 25 July 2022 has approved the proposal to elevate the following judicial officers to the Orissa High Court as Judges: Gaurishankar Satpathy and Chitta Ranjan Das.”
The resolution said the collegium has also recommended the names of two judicial officers Sushil Kukreja and Virender Singh as judges of the Himachal Pradesh High Court.
Recently on July 20, the CJI-led collegium approved a proposal to promote 21 judicial officers as judges in various high courts.
The three-member collegium, which takes decisions regarding high court judges, took the decision in a meeting and the resolution was uploaded on the apex court’s website on Monday.