Justice Amreshwar Pratap Sahi was sworn in as the chief justice of the Madras High Court on Monday, PTI reported.
Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit administered the oath of office to Sahi at a ceremony held in Raj Bhavan. Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and Assembly Speaker P Dhanapal were also present along with other senior government officials.
Sahi was previously the chief justice of the Patna High Court. He took charge on November 17, 2018. He will have a tenure of a little more than a year in the Madras High Court as he is due to retire from service on December 31, 2020.
Sahi succeeds VK Tahilramani, who had resigned on September 6 after the Supreme Court Collegium refused her request to reconsider its recommendation to transfer her as the chief justice of the Meghalaya High Court. Tahilramani was the senior-most High Court judge in the country. The decision to transfer the judge was taken by the collegium based on the feedback received from the Madras High Court.
Tahilramani took over as the chief justice of the Madras High Court on August 12 last year. While at the Bombay High Court in May 2017, Tahilramanai had upheld the convictions in the Bilkis Bano gangrape case. She was due to retire from service on October 2, 2020, but the sudden transfer to a much smaller High Court had reportedly upset her.
Her resignation was accepted by President Ram Nath Kovind on September 20 and Justice Vineet Kothari, the senior-most judge of the Madras High Court, was designated the acting chief justice of the court till further orders.
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