Another First: Supreme Court Collegium recommends 68 Names for Elevation As Judges to 12 High Courts, in One Go

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In yet another first, the Supreme Court Collegium has recommended 68 names, including 10 women, for elevation to 12 High Courts of the country in one go. The three-member Collegium headed by Chief Justice of India N. V. Ramana, which met on Aug 25 and Sep 1, picked the 68 names from a list of a total of 112 probable names.

Apart from CJI Ramana, the 3 member-Collegium included Justice U. U. Lalit and Justice A. M. Khanwilkar. The Collegium recommendations will become final if accepted by the Central Government.

Out of the final 68 names, 44 are members of the Bar while 24 are judicial officers. Also, out of the 68 names, 12 names are reiterations, which include 9 advocates and 3 judicial officers for 5 High Courts.

The recommendations have been made for the High Courts of Allahabad (16 names), Madhya Pradesh (1 name), Rajasthan (7 names), Punjab & Haryana (4 names), Calcutta (10 names), Jharkhand (5 names), Chhattisgarh (2 names), Gauhati (5 names), Karnataka (2 names), Madras (4 names), Kerala (8 names) and Jammu & Kashmir (4 names).

The maximum recommendations have been made for the Allahabad High Court, Calcutta High Court, and the Kerala High Court respectively.

High Court wise selection list is as follows:

Allahabad High Court

Recommended Advocates:

Chandra Kumar Rai, Shishir Jain, Krishan Pahal, Sameer Jain, Ashutosh Srivastava, Subhash Vidyarthi, Brij Raj Singh, Shree Prakash Singh, Vikas Budhwar, Vikram D. Chauhan, Rishad Murtaza, Dhruv Mathur, and Vimlendu Tripathi.

Recommended Judicial Officers:

Om Prakash Tripathi, Umesh Chandra Sharma, and Syed Waiz Mian. All three names are reiterated. 

Calcutta High Court 

Recommended Advocates:

Krishna Rao, and Ms. Koyeli Bhattacharyya.

Recommended Judicial officers:

Smt. Shampa Dutt (Paul), Bibhas Ranjan De, Siddhartha Roy Chowdhury, and Ajoy Kumar Mukherjee

Reiterated names:

Adv. Jaytosh Majumdar, Adv. Amitesh Banerjee, Adv. Raja Basu Chowdhury, Adv. Smt. Lapita Banerji

Kerala High Court

Recommended Advocates:

Shoba Annamma Eapen, Sanjeetha Kalloor Arakkal, Basant Balaji, and Aravinda Kumar Babu Thavarakkattil.

Recommended Judicial Officers:

C. Jayachandran, Sophy Thomas, P. G. Ajithkumar, and C.S. Sudha

Rajasthan High Court

Recommended Advocates:

Ganesh Ram Meena, Sudesh Bansal, and Anoop Dhand.

Recommended Judicial Officers:

Uma Shankar Vyas, Vinod Kumar Bharwani, and Madan Gopal Vyas.

Reiterated Names:

Farzad Ali (presently an Advocate).

Jharkhand High Court

Recommended Judicial Officers:

Pradeep Kumar Srivastava, Gautam Kumar Choudhary, Ambuj Nath, Navneet Kumar, and Sanjay Prasad.

Gauhati High Court

Recommended Advocates:

Kakheto Sema, Devashis Baruah, and Arun Dev Choudhury.

Recommended Judicial Officers:

Smt. Malasri Nandi, and Smt. Marli Vankung.

Madras High Court 

Recommended Advocates:

Sundaram Srimathy, D. Bharatha Chakravarthy, R. Vijayakumar, and Mohammed Shaffiq.

Jammu and Kashmir High Court

Recommended Judicial Officers:

Mohan Lal, and, Mohd. Akram Chowdhary

Reiterated names:

Adv. Rahul Bharti and Adv. Smt. Moksha Kazmi (Khajuria)

Punjab and Haryana High Court

Recommended Advocates:

Vikas Suri, Vinod Sharma (Bhardwaj), Pankaj Jain, and Jasjit Singh Bedi.

Karnataka High Court

Recommended (reiterated) Advocates:

Nagendra R. Naik, Aditya Sondhi

Chhattisgarh High Court

Recommended Advocate:

Sachin Singh Rajput

Recommended Judicial Officer:

Deepak Kumar Tiwari

Madhya Pradesh High Court

Recommended Advocate:

Presently the Advocate General of Madhya Pradesh, Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav