NEW DELHI: President Droupadi Murmu on Thursday appointed senior advocate K V Viswanathan, who hails from Kalpathy in Palakkad, as a judge of the Supreme Court. The president also named Prashant Kumar Mishra, the chief justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, to the apex court.
Both Mishra and Viswanathan are scheduled to take the oath of office on Friday. The appointment of the two new judges has taken place within 48 hours of their recommendation by the Supreme Court Collegium.
Viswanathan is likely to be the Chief Justice of India in 2030. “On the retirement of Justice Jamshed Burjor Pardiwala on August 11, 2030, Viswanathan would be in line to assume office as the Chief Justice of India till his retirement on May 25, 2031,” the Collegium had said in its recommendation. In that case, he will become the second Keralite to adorn the post, after Justice K G Balakrishnan.
Viswanathan was born on May 16, 1966 in Kalpathy. He graduated from the Coimbatore Law College, and enrolled as an advocate in Tamil Nadu before moving to New Delhi. He has appeared in a wide range of cases on diverse subjects, including Constitutional, criminal, commercial, insolvency and arbitration law.