Five new judges of the Supreme Court were administered the oath of office by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud on Monday. This took the total number of judges in the apex court to 32, just two short of full strength.
Justices Pankaj Mithal, Sanjay Karol, P V Sanjay Kumar, Ahsanuddin Amanullah and Manoj Misra were administered the oath during a swearing-in ceremony held in the Supreme Court premises.
The senior-most among the five judges is Justice Mithal, whose parent cadre is the Allahabad High Court. He has served as Chief Justice of the Rajasthan High Court since October 14, 2022.
The oath comes amid a face-off between the government and the judiciary over the process of appointing judges to the Supreme Court and the 25 high courts.
The names of the judges were recommended for elevation as apex court judges by the Supreme Court Collegium on December 13, 2022.
On February 4, Law Minister KirRijiju had announcedced the appointment of Justices Pankaj Mithal, Chief Justice of Rajasthan High Court, Justice Karol, Chief Justice of Patna High Court, Justice Kumar, Chief Justice of Manipur High Court, Justice Amanullah of Patna High Court and Justice Misra of Allahabad High Court as apex court judges.
Both the apex court and the government have been vocal about their differences over the Collegium system of appointment of judges in the higher judiciary.
In a major escalation, Rijiju had recently described the Collegium as being “alien” to the Indian Constitution, while Vice President and Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar questioned the Supreme Court striking down the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Act and a related constitution amendment Act in 2015.
The Modi government had sought to replace the Collegium system of appointing Supreme Court and High Court judges with a new method through the NJAC law.
On January 31, the Supreme Court collegium had recommended two more names for elevation as top court judges — Allahabad High Court Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal and Gujarat High Court Chief Justice Aravind Kumar. Once they are appointed and take oath, the top court will have its full strength of 34.
(With PTI inputs)
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