Days After Govt Hikes Number of Judges in Top Court, Collegium Recommends 4 Names

New Delhi: Just around a fortnight after the President’s nod to increase the number of judges in the Supreme Court, the Collegium has made recommendations to the Centre for filling up the posts.

The Supreme Court Collegium, headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, has recommended names of four sitting chief justices of high courts — three for the increased posts and another one for a judge who retired on August 27.

Those recommended for elevation are: Justice Hrishikesh Roy, Justice Ravinder Bhat, Justice V Ramasubramanian and Justice Krishna Murari.

Justice Roy is presently the Chief Justice of the Kerala High Court whereas Justice V Ramasubramanian is the chief justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court. Justice Bhat is the chief justice of Rajasthan High Court and Justice Murari is the chief justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court.

The fourth name has been recommended as Justice Sapre retired on August 27. These names have been sent to the Union Law Ministry, which will now process them under the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP).

President Ram Nath Kovind had on August 10 signed into law a Bill that sought to increase the sanctioned strength of judges in the Supreme Court from 30 to 33 besides the Chief Justice of India. With no vacancy, the present strength of the apex court is 31, including the chief justice of India.

The move to increase the strength of judges by 3 or 10 per cent came against the backdrop of rising cases in the top court, which stand at nearly 60,000.

The decision was taken days after CJI Gogoi wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to increase the number of judges in the top court. Due to paucity of judges, the required number of Constitution benches to decide important cases involving questions of law were not being formed, the CJI said.

“You would recall that way back in 1988, about three decades ago, the judge strength of the SC was increased from 18 to 26, and then again after two decades in 2009, it was increased to 31, including the CJI, to expedite disposal of cases to keep pace with the rate of institution,” he wrote.

“I request you to kindly consider, on top priority, to augment the judge-strength in the SC appropriately so that it can function more efficiently and effectively as it will go a long way to attain ultimate goal of rendering timely justice to the litigant public," added the CJI's letter written in June this year.