Supreme Court collegium clears 13 names for Bombay HC judges

The Bombay high court (HC) is all set to get 13 new judges after the Supreme Court (SC) collegium, in its meeting held on March 19, decided to elevate nine advocates and four lower judiciary officers to the post of high court (HC) judges.

The Bombay high court (HC) is all set to get 13 new judges after the Supreme Court (SC) collegium, in its meeting held on March 19, decided to elevate nine advocates and four lower judiciary officers to the post of high court (HC) judges.

The Supreme Court. (HT FILE)

The Bombay HC, which has a sanctioned strength of 94 judges, is currently functioning with only 62 judges who are assigned duties at the principal seat in Bombay and its benches at Nagpur, Aurangabad and Goa. The nine persons elevated have been doing duties as additional public prosecutors, additional government pleaders or represented other government and local bodies in the HC.

The elevated persons include Aruna Pai, Shailesh Brahme, Kamal Khata, Sharmila Deshmukh, Amira Abdul Razaq, Sandeep Marne, Sandeep Parikh, Somasekhar Sundarsen and Mahendra Nerlikar. The implementation of the decision is, however, awaited in light of a notification which has to be issued by the governor’s office. The last batch of new judges had been added in January 2020 when four judges were sworn in.

This year, a list of 22 probable candidates had been forwarded to the collegium for consideration, of which nine were approved for the post of judge while four were approved for the post of judicial officers.