Six high courts get new chief justices

The Union government has notified the appointment of chief justices to high courts of Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Orissa, Gauhati, Allahabad and Meghalaya.

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ON Friday, the Union government notified the appointments of chief justices to the six high courts.

The notifications to this effect were issued late evening yesterday.

With this, the high courts of Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Orissa, Gauhati, Allahabad and Meghalaya will get regular chief justices.

The government has, however, not acted on the collegium's recommendation to appoint Justice B.R. Sarangi as chief justice of the Jharkhand High Court. It has also not cleared the appointment of Justice Sheel Nagu, a judge of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, as the chief justice of the high court of Punjab and Haryana.

The Rajasthan High Court judge Justice Arun Bhansali has been appointed as chief justice of the Allahabad High Court. The Allahabad High Court has been functioning without a regular chief justice since November 22 when the then incumbent Chief Justice Pritinker Diwaker demitted office on retirement.

Another judge of the Rajasthan High Court, Justice Vijay Bishnoi, has been appointed as chief justice of the Gauhati High Court. The Gauhati High Court has been functioning sans a regular chief justice since November 9 when the then incumbent Chief Justice Sandeep Mehta was appointed to the Supreme Court.

Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava, judge of the Rajasthan High Court has been appointed as the chief justice of the Rajasthan High Court. Justice Shrivastava hails from the Chhattisgarh High Court. The Rajasthan High Court has been functioning sans a regular chief justice since November 9 when the then incumbent Chief Justice Augustine George Masih was appointed to the Supreme Court.

The collegium, which comprises the Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dr D.Y. Chandrachud and Justices Sanjiv Khanna and B.R. Gavai, made recommendations on December 29 last year to appoint these three judges as the chief justices.

Pertinently, the collegium on December 29 also made recommendations to appoint chief justices to the high courts of Jharkhand, and Punjab and Haryana. But the Union government, for reasons not known in public, has not cleared the appointment of chief justices to these two high courts.

The Patna High Court judge Chakradhari Sharan Singh as the Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court. Justice S. Vaidyanathan of the Madras High Court has been appointed as chief justice of the Meghalaya High Court. Justice Vaidyanathan is currently the senior-most judge at the Madras High Court.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court judge Justice Ritu Bahri has been appointed as Chief Justice of the High Court of Uttarakhand.

Earlier, The Leaflet had reported that two days after the Supreme Court Collegium recommended the appointment of Orissa High Court's Justice B.R. Sarangi as the chief justice of the Jharkhand High Court, the senior-most judge of the Jharkhand High Court Justice Shree Chandrashekhar requested to be transferred out of the high court.

Justice Sarangi was appointed as judge of the Orissa High Court on June 20, 2013, while Justice Chandrashekhar was appointed as judge of the Jharkhand High Court on January 17, 2013. It can be seen that Justice Chandrashekhar is senior to Justice Sarangi.

The Union government has yet to transfer Justice Shree Chandrashekhar to the Rajasthan High Court.

Recently, the issue of transfer of judges came up during an incident unfortunate for the reputation of the judiciary when Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of the Calcutta had a visible fracas with a division Bench Bench of the high court comprising Justices Soumen Sen and Uday Kumar.

After the single judge and the division Bench had passed contradictory Orders, Justice Gangopadhyay brought up the issue of the impending transfer of Justice Sen to the Orissa High Court.

He said he did not know how a judge who has been under an Order of transfer for more than two years is acting here as a judge defying the Supreme Court Collegium's recommendation.

"Who are the persons behind him, who are saving him from such transfer whereby the Order of the Supreme Court Collegium can be ignored while the other judges have been transferred by the same recommendation?" he asked.