Supreme Court welcomes four new judges, strength rises to 28
The number of Supreme Court judges now stands at 28, as it welcomed Justices Hemant Gupta, R Subhash Reddy, MR Shah and Ajay Rastogi, in its fold. Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi administered the oath to the four justices at the swearing-in ceremony that started at 10:30AM. This development happened after the President approved the SC Collegium's recommendation for elevating these HC judges.
The newly sworn-in judges were Chief Justices of High Courts
All the sworn-in judges were Chief Justices of different High Courts. While Gupta, who was earlier a judge of Punjab and Haryana HC, was the Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh HC, Reddy held the same position at the Gujarat HC. Similarly, Justice Shah was the Chief Justice of the Patna HC and Rastogi was the Chief Justice of the Tripura HC.
Before elevation as Chief Justices, all were judges in HCs
Before being elevated as the Chief Justice, Gupta served as acting Chief Justice in Patna HC. Meanwhile, Reddy was appointed as a judge of Andhra Pradesh HC and promoted as the Chief Justice in 2016. Justice Shah was a judge at the Gujarat HC and Rastogi served as a judge of the Rajasthan HC, prior to becoming the Chief Justices of respective high courts.
SC Collegium recommended names as several judges slated for retirement
The move by SC collegium, led by Gogoi and comprising its four senior-most judges, was taken probably because justices Lokur and Kurian Joseph are set to retire this year, while Justice Sikri will demit office next March. Hence, on October-30, they had recommended to the Centre the names of these four for the apex court, which has a sanctioned strength of 31.
