The Supreme Court Collegium has recommended four High Court chief justices and approved nine further names for appointment to the Bombay and Madhya Pradesh High Courts.
Justice Manash Ranjan Pathak, whose parent court is the Gauhati High Court and who is serving in Gujarat, has been recommended as Chief Justice of the Gujarat High Court. Justice P. Sam Koshy, a Chhattisgarh High Court judge now serving in Telangana, has been proposed for the Delhi High Court. The Collegium also recommended Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty of the Calcutta High Court for Telangana and Justice Sudhir Singh of the Patna High Court for Uttarakhand.
A separate resolution approved seven advocates for appointment to the Madhya Pradesh High Court: Dr Vivek Sharan, Rajesh Kumar Shukla, Kanak Gaharwar, also known as Kanak Lata Singh, Bhakti Vyas, Shreyas Pandit, Mrinal Elker, also known as Mrinal Mazumdar, and Avinash Zargar.
For the Bombay High Court, the Collegium approved Ajay Sharma, a judicial member of the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal in Mumbai, and advocate Vaibhav Anant Sugdare.
The resolutions record decisions taken at the Collegium’s October 26 meeting. They are recommendations, not completed appointments. Each name must still pass through the Union Government’s appointment process before the President issues a warrant and the candidate takes office. The same distinction applies to the proposed chief justices: the recommendations do not by themselves alter the present leadership of any court.
The recommendations were released in three short statements rather than a single explanatory resolution. They identify the proposed courts and, for the chief-justice candidates, the judges’ parent and present High Courts, but do not set out the Collegium’s reasons for choosing the names.
The Supreme Court has published the official statements covering the four chief justices, the Madhya Pradesh appointments and the Bombay appointments.
