NEW DELHI: In a record, the law ministry on Saturday notified appointments of 13 chief justices — eight judges elevated as CJs and five transferred to high courts.
The single-day largest set of appointments of CJs includes the transfer of Justice Akil Kureshi from Tripura HC where he was chief justice, to the Rajasthan HC as its chief justice. Kureshi’s exclusion from the list of nine judges recently elevated to the Supreme Court had been commented on as was the reversal of his earlier transfer in 2019 to Madhya Pradesh HC as its CJ before being sent to Tripura HC as its chief justice.
The list of 13 CJs appointed and transferred on Saturday is part of the recommendations made by the Supreme Court collegium on September 17.
Law minister Kiren Rijiju told TOI that his ministry has been clearing all files of appointments “in record time” and both the SC collegium and the government are “on the same page” on filling up pending vacancies.
The eight HC judges elevated as chief justices include Justices Rajesh Bindal, acting CJ of Calcutta HC as CJ of Allahabad HC; Ranjit More as CJ of Meghalaya HC; Satish Chandra Sharma, acting CJ of Karnataka HC as CJ of Telangana HC; Prakash Shrivastava as CJ of Calcutta HC; R V Malimath, acting CJ of Himachal Pradesh HC as CJ of MP HC; Ritu Raj Awasthi as CJ of Karnataka HC; Arvind Kumar as CJ of Gujarat HC and Prashant Mishra as CJ of Andhra Pradesh.
