The Supreme Court Collegium has recommended nine advocates for appointment as judges in the Madras High Court out of a total list of 11 submitted before it.
In a meeting held on December 4, details of which was published on Wednesday, the Collegium of three senior-most judges, Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, Justices J. Chelameswar and Ranjan Gogoi recommended C. Emalias, P.T. Asha, M. Nirmal Kumar, senior advocate Subramonium Prasad, who is presently the Additional Advocate General for Tamil Nadu in the Supreme Court, Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy, N. Anand Venkatesh, G.K. Ilanthiraiyan, Krishnan Ramasamy, and C. Saravanan, for appointment as judges in the Madras High Court.
On the same day, the Collegium has also recommended five advocates for appointment as judges in the Karnataka High Court. They are Dixit Krishna Shripad, Shankar Ganapathi Pandit, Ramakrishna Devdas, Bhotanhosur Mallikarjuna Shyam Prasad and Siddappa Sunil Dutt Yadav.
Recommendations for judicial appointments were made by the Collegium for the Calcutta High Court. The Collegium recommended five advocates for appointment as judges in the Calcutta High Court. They are Shampa Sarkar, Sabyasachi Chaudhury, Ravi Krishan Kapur, Arindam Mukherjee and Sakya Sen.
The December 4 meeting also saw the Supreme Court Collegium recommend for permanent judgeships, the names of additional judges in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand High Courts.
In the Madras High Court list, however, advocate A.V. Radhakrishnan was not found suitable for elevation to the High Court Bench as he had crossed the maximum age limit of 55 years prescribed for advocates recommended for elevation to the Bench even as on the date of recommendation of the High Court Collegium.
The case of advocate B. Pugalendhi for elevation to the Madras High Court has been deferred for the present in the light of “certain adverse but unconfirmed inputs” received by the Collegium, the note said. The Collegium said it would wait to get the inputs verified before taking a final decision in the case.
The 11 names were unanimously made by the then Chief Justice of the Madras High Court S.K. Kaul on December 19, 2016, in consultation with his two senior-most colleagues. The Chief Minister and the Governor of the State of Tamil Nadu had also concurred.
The Intelligence Bureau report on the advocates had revealed that the advocates recommended for elevation enjoyed “good personal and professional image and that nothing adverse has come to notice against their integrity.”
On December 1, the apex court Collegium recommended the names of three advocates — Rajesh Kumar, Anubha Rawat Choudhary and Kailash Prasad Deo — for appointment as judges in the Jharkhand High Court. The Collegium, on the same day, recommended advocate Arindam Lodh for appointment as judge in the Tripura High Court.
