Centre clears names of nine judges for SC
NEW DELHI: The decks have been cleared for India to get its first woman Chief Justice of India (CJI) in 2027. The Union government on Thursday notified the appointment of nine new judges to the Supreme Court, including justice BV Nagarathna, who will be in line to take over as the first women CJI in September 2027 for a tenure of a little over a month.
Apart from justice Nagarathna, two more women judges are among the nine appointed to the top court. This is the largest number of judges appointed in the Supreme Court at one go.
On August 18, HT reported that collegium cleared nine names for appointments in the apex court. HT first reported on February 21 that justice Nagarathna was among those in contention to be elevated, and that she could go on to become the country’s first woman CJI.
The Supreme Court, which has a sanctioned strength of 34 judges, currently has only one woman judge, justice Indira Banerjee, who is set to retire in September 2022. The Supreme Court collegium’s latest push for appointment of three women judges can be seen as an important step in bridging the gender gap in an institution which has seen only eight women judges in the last 71 years.
Justice Nagarathna, elevated from the Karnataka high court, is the daughter of former CJI Engalaguppe Seetharamiah Venkataramiah, who was in the top office for six months in 1989. This will be only the second instance of two generations of a family heading the judiciary. Justice Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud is in the line to become the CJI in November 2022, while his father, justice YV Chandrachud, was the CJI between 1978 and 1985.
The other names cleared by the government are justices Abhay Shreeniwas Oka (chief justice of Karnataka HC), Vikram Nath (chief justice of Gujarat HC), Jitendra Kumar Maheshwari (chief justice of Sikkim HC), Hima Kohli (chief justice of Telangana HC), CT Ravikumar (judge in Kerala HC), MM Sundresh (judge in Madras HC) and PS Narasimha (senior advocate and former additional solicitor general). According to people familiar with the development, the new judges will take the oath of office on August 31.
Of the nine judges, justices Nath and Narasimha will also be in line to become the CJI. As per the top court’s seniority norms, justice Nath will succeed justice Surya Kant as the CJI for seven months between February and September 2027; justice Narasimha will have a tenure of more than a year after justice Nagarathna demits office in October 2027.
Narasimha is the ninth lawyer ever to be appointed directly from the bar. The recommendation for the senior lawyer came less than a week after the retirement of justice Rohinton F Nariman, who was only the fifth lawyer to be directly appointed from the bar. Narasimha will also be only the third lawyer to become the CJI.
After the new judges are sworn in, the top court will be short of only one judge out of its total strength. Justice Navin Sinha retired on August 18, a day after the collegium finalised nine names for as many vacancies existing at the point of time.
The collegium in the Supreme Court comprises CJI NV Ramana, and justices Uday U Lalit, AM Khanwilkar, Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud and L Nageswara Rao. It was the first collegium meeting in the last 21 months in which the five most senior judges could arrive at a consensus in forwarding names to the Union government for appointments in the top court.
Since the retirement of justice Ranjan Gogoi as the CJI in November 2019, the collegium had not sent a single recommendation for appointments in the top court.
As reported by HT on February 21, the impasse in the collegium, according to the people familiar with the development, persisted due to justice Nariman’s insistence on recommending justice Akil A Kureshi, currently chief justice of the Tripura high court, as a judge in the apex court. Justice Nariman had asserted that any recommendation to be made by the collegium of the five most senior judges must include justice Kureshi, who stood at number 2 in all-India seniority list of high court judges. A lack of consensus within the collegium stalled appointment of judges in the top court starting November 2019.
The previous CJI SA Bobde’s 17-month tenure turned out to be the only one in Indian judicial history when a CJI demitted office without making any recommendation for the Supreme Court after the advent of the collegium system in 1990s.
Both justices Bobde and Nariman, however, said at different platforms that it is time for the country to have its first woman CJI – an aspiration which will is likely to turn into reality in six years.
APART FROM JUSTICE BV NAGARATHNA, 2 MORE WOMEN JUDGES ARE AMONG THE NINE APPOINTED. THIS IS THE LARGEST NUMBER OF JUDGES ELEVATED AT ONE GO