New Delhi, The Supreme Court collegium, headed by Chief Justice N.V. Ramana, has recommended elevation of eight judges as Chief Justices of various high courts and transfer of five sitting Chief Justices, including justice A.A. Kureshi, to other high courts.
The collegium's decisions, which were earlier reported by IANS, were published on the top court's website on Tuesday. The Supreme Court collegium, which also comprises Justices U.U. Lalit and A.M. Khanwilkar, in its meeting held on September 16, recommended elevation of eight judges as Chief Justices of the high courts.
These are: Justice Rajesh Bindal for the Allahabad High Court, Prakash Srivastava for the Calcutta High Court, Prashant Kumar Mishra for the Andhra Pradesh High Court, Ritu Raj Awasthi for the Karnataka High Court, Satish Chandra Sharma for the Telangana High Court, Ranjit V. More for the Meghalaya High Court, Aravind Kumar for the Gujarat High Court, and R.V. Malimath for the Madhya Pradesh High Court.
Justice Bindal was appointed as the acting Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court on April 29, as the polling got over in West Bengal. He was caught in the standoff between the Trinamool Congress and the Centre after elections in West Bengal.
In another statement, which was also published on top court's website on Tuesday, the list of five Chief Justices who have been transferred to other high courts was also made public.
Justice A.A. Kureshi, who is currently Chief Justice of the Tripura High Court, is recommended to head the Rajasthan High Court, while Rajasthan High Court Chief Justice Indrajit Mahanty will go to Tripura High Court in his place.
Other Chief Justices to be transferred are Arup Kumar Goswami from Andhra Pradesh to the Chhattisgarh High Court, Mohd Rafiq from Madhya Pradesh to the Himachal Pradesh High Court, and Biswanath Somadder from Meghalaya to the Sikkim High Court.
According to the third statement published on top court's website, the collegium in its meeting held on September 16, has recommended "transfer/re-transfer" 17 high court judges.
These are Justices Jaswant Singh, Sabina, T.S. Sivagnanam, Sanjaya Kumar Mishra, M.M. Shrivastava, Soumen Sen, Ahsanuddin Amanullah, Ujjal Bhuyan, Paresh R. Upadhyay, M.S.S. Ramachandra Rao, Arindam Sinha, A.M. Badar, Yashwant Varma, Vivek Agarwal, Chandra Dhari Singh, Anoop Chitkara, and Ravi Nath Tilhari.
Justice Ramana, after assuming charge as the CJI in April this year, has recommended close to 100 names for appointment to different high courts, besides filling up nine vacancies of judges in the top court in one go.