The Supreme Court will have 5 new judges today

New Delhi:

The Supreme Court is set to recruit five new justices, taking its roster to 32 from 34 on Monday when three chief justices – Justice Pankaj Mithal, Justice Sanjay Karol and PV Sanjay Kumar – from the high courts of Rajasthan, Patna and Manipur respectively will be sworn in alongside two other senior High Court judges.

Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah of Patna High Court and Justice Manoj Misra of Allahabad High Court will also be sworn in by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) as Supreme Court Justices in a ceremony which will be held in the auditorium of the court in its new building complex.

The senior among the five judges, whose names were officially announced by the Center on Saturday, is Justice Mithal whose parent cadre is the Allahabad High Court.

He had served as Chief Justice of the High Court of Rajasthan since October 14 last year.

Born on June 17, 1961, Justice Mithal graduated in Commerce from Allahabad University in 1982. He received his Bachelor of Laws in 1985 from Meerut College and registered as a barrister in Uttar Pradesh the same year.

He started practicing at Allahabad High Court in 1985 and was the permanent attorney for Uttar Pradesh Avas Evam Vikas Parishad. He was also the permanent Advocate of Dr BR Ambedkar University, Agra between 1990 and February 2006.

Justice Mithal was appointed as an Additional Judge of the Allahabad High Court on July 7, 2006 and was sworn in as a permanent Judge on July 2, 2008. He was sworn in as the Chief Justice of the Joint High Court for the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. and the Union Territory of Ladakh on 4 January 2021.

The second most senior judge to be sworn in on Monday is Justice Karol, whose parent HC executive is Himachal Pradesh. He was the Chief Justice of the High Court of Patna at the time of elevation.

Justice Karol was born on August 23, 1961. An alumnus of the prestigious St. Edward School, Shimla, he graduated with honors in History from Government Degree College, Shimla.

A native of Kangra district, he received his law degree from the University of Himachal Pradesh and registered as a barrister in 1986.
Justice Karol has practiced in various courts, including the Supreme Court. He specializes in matters related to the Constitution, taxation and corporate, criminal and civil matters. He was appointed senior counsel in 1999.

Justice Karol also served as the Advocate General of Himachal Pradesh from 1998 to 2003 and was elevated to Judge of the High Court of Himachal Pradesh on March 8, 2007. He was appointed Acting Chief Justice of the court as of April 25, 2017.

He was appointed Chief Justice of the High Court of Tripura on November 9, 2018 and of the High Court of Patna on November 11, 2019.

Judge PV Sanjay Kumar, who originally belonged to the Telangana High Court, is third in the list of five judges and was head of the Manipur High Court at the time of the Collegium’s recommendation on December 13 last year and subsequent authorization from the Centre.

Born on August 14, 1963, he graduated in Commerce from Nizam College, Hyderabad and graduated with an LL.B from Delhi University in 1988.

Justice Kumar registered as a member of the Bar Council of Andhra Pradesh in August 1988 and was a government litigator in the High Court of Andhra Pradesh from 2000 to 2003.

He was brought to the bench as an additional judge of the Andhra Pradesh High Court on 8th August 2008 and assumed the office of permanent judge of the court on 20th January 2010. Justice Kumar assumed the office of judge of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana on October 14, 2019. He was sworn in as Chief Justice of Manipur High Court on February 14, 2021.

Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah of the Patna High Court is the fourth justice appointed to the Supreme Court.

Born on May 11, 1963, he was admitted to the Bihar State Bar on September 27, 1991 and served as a permanent advocate for the state government from March 2006 to August 2010.

He served as a government barrister in the Patna High Court until his elevation to the post of judge in the same court on June 20, 2011. He was transferred to the Andhra Pradesh High Court on October 10, 2021 and back to the Patna High Court on June 20. , 2022.

Judge Manoj Misra, the fifth in the list, was born on June 2, 1965. He registered as a barrister on December 12, 1988 and was appointed as an additional judge in the Allahabad High Court on November 21, 2011. He lent sworn in as permanent judge on August 6, 2013.

The five names of Supreme Court Justices were recommended by the six-member Supreme Court Collegium on December 13 last year.

On January 31, the College of the Supreme Court recommended two more names for appointment as top judges – Chief Justice of the High Court of Allahabad Rajesh Bindal and Chief Justice of the High Court of Gujarat Aravind Kumar.

Of the 27 top judges in the courts at present, eight are expected to leave office in 2023.

(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)