CHIEF Justices of 3 High Courts Elevated As Supreme Court Judges
JUSTICE Indira Banerjee , Chief Justice of the Madras High Court, her counterpart of the Uttarakhand High Court Justice K M Joseph and the Chief Justice of Odisha High Court Vineet Saran have been elevated to the Supreme Court of India .Their names were recommended by the Collegium comprising the apex court’s senior most judges, They have all turned sixty and expected to remain in the august offices till they become 65 –year-old as per the prescribed norm. Presently, the retirement age of SC judges is 65 and that of High Court judges is 62. Government proposes to enhance their retirement age by two years. Indira Banerjee, who is an alumnus of Kolkata’s Loreto House and the Presidency College, had joined the Kolkata High Court Bar before becoming a judge of the same high court. Appointed by then President Pranab Mukherjee, as Chief Justice of Madras High Court, Indira Banerjee, was born on 24 September 1957, was the second woman to head the chartered High Court after Kanta Kumari Bhatnagar .After completing schooling at the Loreto House; she pursued her higher education at the Presidency College and Calcutta University’s College of Law. She was enrolled as an advocate on 5 July 1985 and practised before the Calcutta High Court. Indira Banerjee was appointed as a permanent Judge of the Calcutta High Court on 5 February 2002 and transferred to the Delhi High Court with effect from 8 August 2016. With Justice Banerjee’s elevation, the Supreme Court will have three woman sitting judges. Justice R Banumathi from Tamil Nadu and Justice Indu Malhotra from Delhi are the other two. Ending protracted deadlock with the judiciary, the Government has agreed to the Supreme Court Collegium’s decision reiterating its recommendation to elevate Uttarakhand High Court Chief Justice K M Joseph to the Supreme Court. The Government had reservation about justice KM Joseph’s elevation citing that in the seniority list of high court judges, he ranked 42nd .Joseph, a second generation judge, is from Kerala where he was judge of the state High Court for nine years after practising as an advocate. Justice Vineet Saran, a native of Uttar Pradesh, was born in a Zamindar family of Bijnor .He graduated from Allahabad University in 1976 and obtained LL.B. Degree in 1979/80 and then was enrolled as an advocate with the U.P. Bar Council and practised in the Allahabad High Court on the original, constitution, civil and criminal sides. He was also Additional Advocate General for the State of U.P. in 1995 before his elevation as a permanent Judge of Allahabad High Court. He was later transferred to Karnataka High Court before becoming Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court on 26th February 2016.
