NEW DELHI: Retired Judge Ramalingam Sudhakar has been appointed as the President of National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), the Ministry of Corporate Affairs said in an official communication.
The appointment has been made for a period of five years or till he reaches the age of 67 years. He has been asked to assume the office within two weeks.
Justice Sudhakar was the chief justice of Manipur High Court from May 2018 till his retirement in February this year.
He had also been the acting chief justice of Jammu and Kashmir High Court before being transferred to Manipur. Before that, he was a judge in Madras High Court since December 2010.
Apart from his judicial work during his tenure as a judge in Madras High Court, Justice Sudhakar had also carried out many important administrative works.
He was the chairman of the committee which began digitisation of court records.
He was member of a committee which was instrumental in preparing and settling proposals for a sum of Rs 300 crore for construction of court buildings and Court attached quarters for judicial officers of various districts.
He also oversaw the work of a state of art Arbitration Centre at Madras High Court.
Meanwhile, the government has also appointed Justice Ashok Bhushan, a former judge of the Supreme Court, as chairperson of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT).
Both the posts of NCLT president and NCLAT chairman were vacant for over one and a half years.
The appellate tribunal NCLAT is going to have a permanent chairperson after a gap of almost 19 months.
Its first chairperson Justice S J Mukhopadhaya had retired on March 14, 2020, and since then it was functioning with Acting Chairpersons.
In the last 19 months, NCLAT had three Acting Chairpersons, with two of them getting several extensions.