SC Collegium Okays 6 Out Of 10 Names For Elevation To Madras HC, 4 Women Judges In The List [Read The Collegium Recommendations]

The Supreme Court collegium has approved six names out of the 10 judicial officers recommended by the Madras High Court Chief Justice for elevation to the high court. It rejected the other four names citing adverse intelligence reports, while also rejecting a representation by many senior judicial officers of the state who alleged that they have been over-looked by the high court collegium.

Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, J Chelameswar and Justice Ranjan Gogoi resolved to recommend six names, which includes four lady judges, to be appointed as judges of the Madras High Court.

These six names were among the two lists of judicial officers sent to the Supreme Court by the high court collegium.

The 10 names were S Ramathilagam, P Rajamanickam, S Tharani, NV Vasudevan, T Krishnavalli, B Sarojini Devi, A Jahir Hussain, R Pongiappan, R Hemlata and K Arul.

Of these, the names approved by the SC collegium are T Krishnavalli, R Pongiappan, R Hemalatha, S Ramathilagam, R Tharani, and P Rajamanickam.

The SC collegium made it public that “in order to ascertain suitability of the above-named recommendees for elevation to the high court, we have consulted our colleagues who are conversant with the affairs of the Madras High Court”.

As regards the name of judicial officer B Sarojini Devi, the SC collegium deferred the proposal for her elevation in view of an inquiry pending against her in the high court and sought further information from the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court with regard to the said inquiry.

The Collegium notes reveal that two recommendations were rejected because of factors including adverse IB reports

 While considering the names, the SC collegium added that the “proposal involves non-recommendation of large number of senior Judicial Officers. Many of them have given representations putting forth their grievances of having been over-looked by the High Court Collegium. In this regard, we have gone through the letter dated 30th January, 2017 of the then Chief Justice of the Madras High Court who has duly recorded reasons for not recommending names of these Judicial Officers. We are satisfied with the reasons assigned by the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court and find no merit in the said representations which deserve to be rejected”