Centre appoints 34 judges in six High Courts

The central government cleared the names of advocates Sanjay Kumar Medhi and Nani Tagia as judges of the Gauhati High Court. The two names, on August 8, had been reiterated by the SC collegium, after the central government returned the names for reconsideration.

The members of bar elevated as additional judges of Allahabad High Court are: Prakash Padia, Alok Mathur, Pankaj Bhatia, Saurabh Lavania, Vivek Varma, Sanjay Kumar Singh, Piyush Agrawal, Ramendra Pratap Singh, Saurabh Shyam Shamshery, Jaspreet Singh, Rajeev Singh, Manju Rani Chauhan, Karunesh Singh Pawar, Dr Yogendra Kumar Srivastava, Manish Mathur and Rohit Ranjan Agarwal.

The Centre cleared all 13 recommendations of the SC collegium made on October 31. The judicial officers elevated as judges of the Allahabad HC are: Ram Krishna Gautam, Umesh Kumar, Pradeep Kumar Srivastava, Anil Kumar-IX, Rajendra Kumar-IV, Mohd. Faiz Alam Khan, Vikas Kunvar Srivastava, Virendra Kumar Srivastava, Suresh Kumar Gupta, Sushri Ghandikota Sree Devi, Narendra Kumar Johari, Raj Beer Singh and Ajit Singh.

For the Delhi High Court, the government cleared the name of advocate Manoj Kumar Ohri as judge. His name was recommended by the SC collegium on September 4 along with four other advocates. While the government had on October 15 cleared the names of advocates Jyoti Singh, Prateek Jalan, Anup Jairam Bhambhani and Sanjeev Narula, it has withheld Ohri.

The government also cleared the April 19 recommendation of SC collegium and appointed advocate B Pugalendhi as judge of the Madras High Court. This appointment had been delayed after the collegium received “adverse but unconfirmed” inputs against him. However, on the basis of interaction with Pugalendhi, the SC collegium had then recommended his name to the central government.

In case of the Orissa High Court, the government concurred with the SC collegium recommendation and appointed Dr Akshaya Kumar Mishra as judge. The government also cleared the September 25 recommendation of the SC collegium and appointed advocate Hamarsan Singh Thangkhiew as judge of Meghalaya High Court.