The Union government has approved the appointment of 16 judges and additional judges to various high courts.
Four additional judges of the Andhra Pradesh High Court — Harinath Nunepally, Kiranmayee Mandava, Sumathi Jagadam, and Nyapathy Vijay — have been elevated as permanent judges.
In the Calcutta High Court, Partha Sarathi Sen and Apurba Sinha Ray, both serving as additional judges, have been confirmed as permanent judges.
Other appointments include Vimal Kumar Yadav to the Delhi High Court, Ravindra Kumar Agrawal to the Chhattisgarh High Court, and Gurusiddaiah Basavaraja to the Karnataka High Court.
Seven lawyers have been brought in as additional judges of the Calcutta High Court for a one-year term — Biswaroop Chowdhury, Prasenjit Biswas, Uday Kumar, Ajay Kumar Gupta, Supratim Bhattacharya, Partha Sarathi Chatterjee, and Md. Shabbar Rashidi.
Appointments Amid Rising Vacancies
These appointments come at a time when India’s high courts are struggling with a shortage of judges. As per Department of Justice data from June 2024, there were 345 vacancies across the country — nearly one in every three sanctioned posts.
Prolonged delays have caused frustration among nominees. In one recent case, intellectual property rights lawyer Shwetasree Majumder withdrew her consent for a Delhi High Court judgeship on 5 July 2024 after the government failed to act on the collegium’s recommendation from August 2024.
Under existing norms, high courts are expected to send recommendations at least six months before a post falls vacant. However, as Law and Justice Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal acknowledged in the Rajya Sabha last December, “this time limit is rarely observed.”
Diversity In Judicial Appointments
In May 2024, then Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna published data on the Supreme Court portal outlining collegium recommendations made during his tenure and that of his predecessor, Dhananjaya Chandrachud.
According to the figures released on 5 May, the collegium had proposed 221 names for high court judges. Of these, eight were from Scheduled Castes, seven from Scheduled Tribes, and 32 from Other Backward Classes — representing 14.5% of the total. Women accounted for 15.3%, or 34 nominees.
Court collegium has repeatedly emphasized the need for representation from under-represented regions and communities. In July 2024, Justice N. Kotiswar Singh from Manipur was elevated to the Supreme Court to ensure the North-East had a voice in the top court.
Likewise, Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai, a member of a Scheduled Caste, was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2019.
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