BREAKING| Supreme Court Collegium Recommends Elevation Of Karnataka HC CJ Justice PB Varale As SC Judge

The Supreme Court Collegium has recommended the elevation of Justice Prasanna B Varale, Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court, as a Judge of the Supreme Court.

While recommending Justice Varale's name, the Collegium has taken into consideration the fact that among the High Court Judges he is the senior-most Judge belonging to a Scheduled Caste and the only Chief Justice belonging to a Scheduled Caste among the Chief Justices of High Courts across the country.

He stands at Sl No.6 in the combined all-India seniority of High Court Judges. In the seniority of Judges of the High Court of Bombay, he is the senior-most Judge.

The Collegium led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud observed that the judgments authored by him deal with variety of issues in every field of law. "He is a competent judge with unimpeachable conduct and integrity and has throughout maintained high standard of professional ethics", the five-member collegium recorded in the resolution.

Before his elevation as a Judge of the Bombay High Court in 2008, he practised at the Bar for over 23 years in civil, criminal, labour and administrative law matters in District and Sessions Court and in Constitutional matters at the High Court Bench at Aurangabad. He was appointed as the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court in October 2022.

The recommendation is made towards the vacancy which arose in the Supreme Court following the retirement of Justice SK Kaul last month.

Justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, Surya Kant and Aniruddha Bose are the other members of the Collegium.

The SC Collegium has also recommended Justice PS Dinesh Kumar to be the next CJ of the Karnataka High Court consequent to the elevation of Justice Varale.

Click here to read the resolution