Union Government appoints three new judges to Allahabad HC, one more to Madras HC

All four were appointed belatedly after other names recommended alongside theirs by the Collegium were already appointed earlier this month.

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THE Union Government on Thursday notified the appointment of three advocates as additional judges of the Allahabad High Court. The newly appointed judges are Prashant Kumar, Manjive Shukla and Arun Kumar Singh Deshwal. They were left out by the government while notifying the appointment of six judges to the high court's bench on February 6.

The Supreme Court Collegium had recommended the elevation of nine advocates to the high court bench on January 17. The government, however, notified the appointment of six advocates — Syed Qamar Hasan Rizvi, Manish Kumar Nigam, Anish Kumar Gupta, Nand Prabha Shukla, Kshitij Shailendra and Vinod Diwakar on February 6, while holding back the three names which have been cleared now.

It is not immediately clear for what reasons the government initially refused to notify the appointment of Kumar, Shukla and Deshwal, making them junior to the six judges appointed earlier this month.

The government has also notified the appointment of advocate Venkatachari Lakshminarayanan as an additional judge of the Madras High Court. His name was left out by the government while notifying on February 6 the appointments of advocates Lekshmana Chandra Victoria Gowri, Pillaipakkam Bahukutumbi Balaji and Kandhasami Kulandaivelu Ramakrishnan as additional judges of the high court for two years.

The appointment of advocate Ramaswamy Neelakandan is yet to be notified. The collegium had recommended the names of these five for appointment to the high court bench on January 17 as well.

On February 6, the government also notified the elevation to the Madras high court bench of two judicial officers, namely Ramachandran Kalaimathi and K. Govindarajan Thilakavadi, while withholding the elevation of judicial officer Periyasamy Vadamalai. The three were also recommended by the collegium on January 17. The name of Vadamalai is yet to be cleared by the government.