Govt appoints chief justices of five High Courts

The Centre appointed Justice SV Gangapurwala, currently the acting chief justice of the Bombay High Court, as the chief justice of the Madras High Court. The appointment comes just a day after the retirement of Justice T Raja who was the acting chief justice of the Madras High Court for over six months and Collegium’s recommendation for his transfer was pending.

Conventionally, if the senior most judge of the high court is due for retirement in a month, she is appointed the chief justice of that High Court. The Collegium had recommended Justice Dhanuka to be chief Justice of the Bombay High Court, keeping in mind this convention. However, Justice Dhanuka would become the senior most judge of the Bombay High Court only after Justice Gangapurwala’s appointment as Madras High Court chief Justice was made. The delay in appointing Justice Gangapurwala is learnt to have impacted Justice Dhanuka’s appointment.

Tthe government appointed Justice M S R Ramachandra Rao, currently a judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, as chief justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court. Justice Rao’s parent high court is the Telangana High Court. The Centre also appointed Justice S V Bhatti, currently a judge of the Kerala High Court, as the Chief Justice of the same court. Justice Bhatti is originally from the Andhra Pradesh High Court.

The Centre also appointed Justice Augustine George Masih, judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, as Chief Justice of the Rajasthan High Court.

The five appointments were recommended by the Supreme Court Collegium headed by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud on April 19.

With this, only one recommendation of the Collegium is pending with the government. The Collegium on February 9, had recommended the appointment of Justice Dhiraj Singh Thakur, currently a judge of the Bombay High Court, for appointment as chief justice of the Manipur High Court.

The Collegium had said that “over a long period of time, no judge of Jammu and Kashmir origin has been elevated as chief justice of a high court or as a judge of the Supreme Court of India,” while recommending Justice Thakur, as chief justice of Manipur High Court.