Law ministry clears five judges for Supreme Court

Source:- indiatimes.com

NEW DELHI: The law ministry has cleared the files for appointment of five Supreme Court judges and forwarded them to the Prime Minister’s Office which will shortly take the President’s assent before they are notified, likely to be done within the next week.

The SC currently has 23 judges. With the fresh appointments recommended by the SC collegium, the apex court will have 28 judges, still three short of the sanctioned strength of 31.

The judges cleared for appointment to the SC include chief justices of Rajasthan high court Naveen Sinha, S K Kaul of Madras HC, Dipak Gupta of Chhattisgarh HC, M M Shantanagoudar of Kerala HC and Justice S Abdul Nazeer, a judge of Karnataka High Court.

The law ministry has also cleared the SC collegium’s recommendations for appointment of eight chief justices for various high courts and forwarded the files to the PMO.

According to sources, the SC collegium had first sent a list of seven judges to be elevated as Chief Justices of various High Courts.