NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Friday got two new judges as CJI Chandrachud administered oath to Andhra Pradesh HC Chief Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Senior Advocate KV Vishwanathan as Supreme Court judges.
Senior Advocate KV Vishwanathan would be in line to be at SCs helm of affairs till May 25, 2031.
Their appointment was notified by the Centre on Thursday. Newly appointed Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal while notifying their appointment in his tweet said, “In exercise of the powers conferred by the Constitution of India, Hon'ble President of India, after consultation with Hon'ble Chief Justice of India, is pleased to appoint the following as Judges of the Supreme Court of India: Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra, Chief Justice of AP HC and Kalpathy Venkataraman Viswanathan, Sr. Advocate are appointed as Judges of the Supreme Court of India.”
Their names were recommended by the collegium on May 16 pursuant to the retirement of SC judges Dinesh Maheshwari and MR Shah.
“The Supreme Court of India has a sanctioned strength of thirty-four Judges and is presently functioning with thirty-two Judges. Thus, there are two clear vacancies. With four more vacancies which are going to arise by the second week of July the working strength of Judges would come to twenty-eight. The Collegium has, however, unanimously resolved to recommend, for the present, names to fill up the two existing vacancies,” collegium resolution signed by CJI DY Chandrachud, Justices SK Kaul, KM Joseph, Ajay Rastogi and Sanjiv Khanna stated.
While recommending Justice PK Mishra’s name, the collegium had taken note of the fact that there is no representation to Chattisgarh HC in present composition of SC. “Besides according representation to the State of Chhattisgarh, the appointment of Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra will provide a value addition in terms of his acquired knowledge and experience. Justice Mishra is a judge with integrity,” collegium resolution stated.
Senior Advocate KV Vishwanathan’s name was recommended considering that there is only one member from the bar (Justice PS Narasimha) who was directly appointed to SC and his appointment would enhance the representation of bar in SCs composition.
Interestingly, appointment of Senior Advocate KV Vishwanathan had made headlines in October last year when there was a split in the collegium headed by ex CJI Justice UU Lalit. Although Justice Lalit had in an unprecedented move written to the fellow members of the collegium seeking their consent through circulation for appointment of four judges to SC which also included Senior Advocate KV Vishwanathan’s name but the move had remained “unfinished”. Notably, CJI DY Chandrachud along with Justice S Abdul Nazeer (now retired) had at that time objected to the method adopted for the recommendation.