Ministry sends 15 names to President

Nearly two months after the Supreme Court collegium headed by the Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur had approved the names for appointment of judges to the Madras high court, the Union law ministry has forwarded 15 names from this list to the President for clearance and appointment. It includes nine from among the Bar and six from district judges.

The new judges are expected to be appointed in a couple of days after the President clears the file. Though the collegium had cleared 24 names, PM Narendra Modi is understood to have approved the first batch of 15 names and the remaining nine candidates will have to wait for some more time as fresh IB information has been sought in respect of a few candidates.

The list of 9 names from the Bar sent to the President are: V. Parthiban, R. Subramaniam, M. Govindaraj, M. Sundar, R. Sureshkumar, Ms. Nisha Banu, M.S. Ramesh S.M. Subramaniam and Dr. Anita Sumanth. The six district judges are: S. Baskaran, Basheer Ahmed, G. Jayachandran, C.V. Karthikeyan, R.M.T. Teeka Raman and C.V. Karthikeyan. The Madras HC collegium sent a list of 30 names, 19 from the Bar and 11 from among district judges in February this year. The names were not processed for a long time as the memorandum of procedure for appointment of judges could not be finalised by the government.

However, even as the MoP was being discussed with the Chief Justice of India, the law ministry processed the names and sent to the collegium for its consideration. The collegium at its meeting on July 21 cleared 24 names and rejected six others, which includes four lawyers and two district judges.