ON JULY 2, THE SUPREME COURT COLLEGIUM recommended the appointment of judges to the High Courts of Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Gauhati, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana, Patna, Rajasthan, and Telangana.
The recommendations include a total of 36 names, of which only seven are women candidates.
The candidates recommended by the Collegium, which comprises the Chief Justice of India (CJI) B.R. Gavai, and Justices Surya Kant and Vikram Nath, include both advocates and judicial officers.
It is reported that the candidates were interviewed by the Collegium for their personality assessment.
Andhra Pradesh High Court
The collegium has recommended the name of advocate Tuhin Kumar Gedela, as judge of the High Court of Andhra Pradesh.
The Andhra Pradesh High Court has a sanctioned strength of 28 permanent judges, and 9 additional judges. At present it is functioning with 19 permanent judges and 9 additional judges.
High Court of Delhi
The collegium has recommended names of three judicial officers for their appointment as judges of the Delhi High Court. Of them two are women candidates. The three names recommended by collegium are Shail Jain, Madhu Jain and Vinod Kumar.
The Delhi High Court has a sanctioned strength of 60 judges, which includes 45 permanent judges, and 15 additional judges. At present it is functioning with only 35 judges.
Gauhati High Court
For the Gauhati High Court, the Collegium has recommended names of two advocates and two judicial officers —advocates Anjan Moni Kalita @ Anjan Kalita, and Rajesh Mazumdar and judicial officers Pranjal Das and Sanjeev Kumar Sharma.
The Gauhati High Court has a sanctioned strength of total 30 judges, which includes 22 permanent, and 8 additional judges. At present it is functioning with 19 permanent judges and 5 additional judges.
High Court of Madhya Pradesh
The Collegium has recommended as many as 10 names for appointment as judges of the Madhya Pradesh High Court. Of them five are judicial officers. Advocates whose names have been recommended for judgeship are Pushpendra Yadav, Anand Singh Bahrawat, Ajay Kumar Nirankari, Jai Kumar Pillai, and Himanshu Joshi.
Judicial officers whose names have been recommended are Rajesh Kumar Gupta, Alok Awasthi, Ratnesh Chandra Singh Bisen, Bhagwati Prasad Sharma, and Pradeep Mittal.
The Madhya Pradesh High Court has a sanctioned strength of 53 judges, which includes 40 permanent, and 13 additional judges. At present it is functioning with 35 permanent judges only.
Punjab and Haryana High Court
The collegium has recommended names of as many as 10 judicial officers for their elevation to the bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. Of them, four are women judicial officers. The judicial officers recommended for elevation are Virinder Aggarwal, Mandeep Pannu, Parmod Goyal, Shalini Singh Nagpal, Amarinder Singh Grewal, Subhas Mehla, Surya Partap Singh, Rupinderjit Chahal, Aradhana Sawhney, and Yashvir Singh Rathor.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has a sanctioned strength of total 85 judges, which includes 64 permanent, and 21 additional judges. At present it is functioning with 48 permanent judges and three additional judges.
Patna High Court
The collegium has recommended names of two advocates Ajit Kumar, and Praveen Kumar as judges of the Patna High Court. The Patna High Court has a sanctioned strength of total 53 judges, which includes 40 permanent, and 13 additional judges. At present it is functioning with 36 permanent judges only.
Rajasthan High Court
The collegium has recommended the names of one advocate, Anuroop Singhi, and one judicial officer, Sangeeta Sharma, for their appointment as judges of the Rajasthan High Court.
The Rajasthan High Court has a sanctioned strength of total 50 judges, which includes 38 permanent, and 12 additional judges. At present it is functioning with 37 permanent judges only.
Telangana High Court
The collegium has recommended names of four advocates as judges of the Telangana High Court — Gouse Meera Mohiuddin, Chalapathi Rao Suddala, Vakiti Ramakrishna Reddy and Gadi Praveen Kumar.
The Telangana High Court has a sanctioned strength of total 42 judges, which includes 32 permanent, and 10 additional judges. At present it is functioning with 22 permanent judges and 4 additional judges.
It remains unclear when the High Courts of Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Gauhati, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana, Patna, Rajasthan, and Telangana recommended the names of the 37 candidates to the Supreme Court Collegium, as well as the amount of time the Collegium took to finalise these recommendations.
During the tenure of former CJI D.Y. Chandrachud, the Supreme Court website regularly published detailed minutes of Collegium meetings, including basic information such as the dates of High Court recommendations and the timeline of the Collegium’s deliberations.
However, under CJI Sanjiv Khanna, this practice was discontinued, and it has remained so under the current CJI, B.R. Gavai.
Currently, the Collegium only releases statements listing the names of recommended candidates and their respective High Courts, without details on the timeline or process.