President Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday signed Warrants of Appointment for five judges to be elevated to the Supreme Court, PTI reported. There are now 28 judges in the apex court, but it is still three short of the sanctioned number.
The five judges who were appointed are Rajasthan High Court Chief Justice Naveen Sinha, Madras High Court Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Chhattisgarh High Court Chief Justice Dipak Gupta, Kerala High Court Chief Justice Mohan M Shantanagouder, and Karnataka High Court judge S Abdul Nazeer.
Chief Justice of India JS Khehar, Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Justice Prafulla Chandra Pant are slated to retire from the Supreme Court this year. Seven other judges will retire in 2018.
The Supreme Court on Monday had said it would finalise a new method for appointing judges by the end of February. A bench of the court led by Justice JS Khehar said the Memorandum of Procedure for appointments was a “work in progress”.
In November last year, then Chief Justice TS Thakur had criticised the government for delaying judicial appointments. He had said that there were 500 judges’ posts lying vacant in high courts, adding that the courtrooms were being shut because there were no judges. “Why don’t you lock the courts and lock out justice? Executive inaction is decimating the institution,” he had said.
The Supreme Court had struck down the National Judicial Appointments Commission in October 2015, which the Centre had devised to replace the collegium system and give the executive a role in appointing to the Supreme Court and high courts of India.
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