BREAKING | Collegium Recommends AP HC Chief Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Sr Adv KV Viswanathan for Supreme Court Judgeship

The Supreme Court collegium has recommended the names of Chief Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra of the Andhra Pradesh High Court and Senior Advocate KV Viswanathan to be appointed as judges of the top court, in order to fill the vacancies left behind by now-retired judges Dinesh Maheshwari and MR Shah.The collegium headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud has passed a resolution that reads:"The Supreme Court of India has a sanctioned strength of thirty-four Judges and is presently functioning with thirty-two Judges. Thus, there are two clear vacancies. With four more vacancies which are going to arise by the second week of July the working strength of Judges would come to twenty-eight. The Collegium has, however, unanimously resolved to recommend, for the present, names to fill up the two existing vacancies. The Collegium deliberated on and discussed the names of Chief Justices and senior puisne Judges of the High Courts eligible for appointment to the Supreme Court."The resolution reveals that the factors that weighed with the collegium while making its selection were the seniority of chief justices and senior puisne judges within their parent high courts as well as overall seniority of high court judges, and the merit, performance, and integrity of the judges under consideration. Besides this, another crucial factor in making this determination was the need to ensure diversity and inclusion in the apex court. The four ways in which collegium recommendations account for diversity and inclusiveness, according to the resolution, are: Representation of High Courts which are not represented or are inadequately represented, in the Supreme Court;Appointment of persons from marginalized and backward segments of society;Gender diversity; andRepresentation of minorities. With the recent retirements of Justice Dinesh Maheshwari last week (Sunday, May 12) and Justice MR Shah yesterday (Monday, May 15), the current strength of the Supreme Court has fallen to 32 against a sanctioned strength of 34. This includes the chief justice and 33 puisne judges. In the coming months, four more judges are set to retire, creating additional vacancies.Read the notification here.

BREAKING | Collegium Recommends AP HC Chief Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Sr Adv KV Viswanathan for Supreme Court Judgeship

Awstika Das

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