SC Collegium clears elevation of 12 as Telangana HC judges

Hyderabad, Feb 2 (IANS) The Supreme Court Collegium has approved elevation of 12 advocates and judicial officers as judges in the Telangana High Court.

The Collegium at its meeting on Tuesday approved the proposal for elevation of seven advocates and five judicial officers as judges. They include four women.

The advocates who will be elevated as judges are Kasoju Surendhar alias K. Surender, Chada Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy, Surepalli Nanda, Mummineni Sudheer Kumar, Juvvadi Sridevi alias Kuchadi Sridevi, Mirza Safiullah Baig and Natcharaju Shravan Kumar Venkat.

The judicial officers who will get the elevation are G. Anupama Chakravarthy, M.G. Priyadarshini, Sambasivarao Naidu, A. Santosh Reddy and Dr D. Nagarajun.

This will take the number of judges in Telangana High Court to 30 including Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma. The High Court will still have 12 vacancies.

In June 2021, the bench strength of Telangana High Court, which has over 2.3 lakh pending cases, increased from 24 to 42 judges.

Seven judges including four women were appointed by the President of India in October last year. It was in 2020 that the names of the seven judges were proposed by the Collegium of Telangana High Court to the Supreme Court under judicial quota.

The Supreme Court Collegium headed by Chief Justice N.V. Ramana gave his consent in August 2021 and forwarded the names to the Union government.