A day after the Supreme Court sought an explanation for the delay in judicial appointments, the Centre on Saturday notified the appointment of eight High Court chief justices.

According to the notification, Justice MS Ramachandra Rao, the current chief justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court, has been transferred and appointed as the chief justice of the Jharkhand High Court.

The Jharkhand government had filed a contempt petition in the Supreme Court against the Union Ministry of Law and Justice, alleging delays in approving the collegium’s recommendation to appoint Rao as the chief justice of the state’s High Court.

The collegium had recommended the appointment of Rao on July 11.

Under the collegium system, the five most senior judges of the Supreme Court, including the chief justice, make recommendations on the appointments and transfers of judges to the top court and the High Courts. These recommendations must be approved by the Union government.

Apart from Jharkhand, the chief justices of seven other High Courts have also been appointed.

Justice Rajiv Shakdher, who was a judge of the Delhi High Court, will now serve as chief justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court.

Additionally, Delhi High Court Acting Chief Justice Manmohan has been appointed chief justice of the Delhi High Court.

Justice Suresh Kumar Kait is now the chief justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, and Justice Indra Prasanna Mukerji from the Calcutta High Court is the new chief justice of the Meghalaya High Court.

Justice Nitin Madhukar Jamdar from the Bombay High Court has been appointed chief justice of the Kerala High Court, while Acting Chief Justice Tashi Rabstan is now the chief justice of the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.

Justice Shriram Kalpathi Rajendran from the Bombay High Court has been appointed chief justice of the Madras High Court.

On Saturday, Meghwal also announced the appointment of three additional judges for Madras High Court

The appointment of judges has become a point of contention between the collegium and the Centre in recent years.

It took the Centre nearly two years to appoint advocate Somasekhar Sundaresan as a judge of the Bombay High Court in November. He was first recommended by the Supreme Court collegium in February 2022.

The Centre had raised objections to the fact that Sundaresan had expressed his view on matters pending before the court on social media, but the collegium stood its ground.

Apart from the Jharkhand government, lawyer Harsh Vibhore Singal had also moved the Supreme Court seeking the establishment of fixed timelines for the Centre to process and approve resolutions of the collegium.

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