Working towards resolving the issues of vacancy of posts and pendency of cases, the efforts of the President and the Supreme Court Collegium in increasing the number of judges of the Apex Court have been successful. On November 02, the Supreme Court thus received four new judges: Justice Hemant Gupta, Justice R. Subhash Reddy, Justice M.R. Shah, and Justice Ajay Rastogi. With this, the...
Working towards resolving the issues of vacancy of posts and pendency of cases, the efforts of the President and the Supreme Court Collegium in increasing the number of judges of the Apex Court have been successful.
On November 02, the Supreme Court thus received four new judges: Justice Hemant Gupta, Justice R. Subhash Reddy, Justice M.R. Shah, and Justice Ajay Rastogi. With this, the total strength of the Apex Court is now raised to 28, from the earlier strength of 24. Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi administered the oath of office to the four judges.
Notably, on November 1, the President had given his assent to the recommendation of the Supreme Court Collegium for elevating Justice Gupta, Justice Reddy, Justice Shah, and Justice Rastogi as Apex Court judges from their previous positions as chief justices of various high courts.
Justice Gupta (born on October 17, 1957) enrolled as an Advocate on July 1980 and started practice in the District Court of Chandigarh. He entered the High Court of Punjab and Haryana and worked on Civil, Labour, Company, and Constitutional matters. In 1997, he was appointed as Additional Advocate General of Punjab, and on July 2 2002, he was elevated as a Judge of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana. Justice Gupta took over the charge of Chief Justice of the Patna High Court on October 29, 2016. Thereafter, he was appointed as the Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court on March 18, 2017.
Justice Reddy (born on January 05, 1957) enrolled as an Advocate on the rolls of the Bar Council of Andhra Pradesh on October 30, 1980 and joined the Chambers of Sri Justice B. Subhashan Reddy (as Advocate as he then was). He was Standing Counsel for premier institutions like S.V. University and Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University. Justice Reddy was elected unanimously as the President of the AP High Court Advocates Association for the years 2001-2002. On December 02, 2002, he was elevated as Additional Judge of High Court of Andhra Pradesh and as Judge of the Court on June 24, 2004. Thereafter, on February 13, 2016, Justice Reddy was elevated as Chief Justice of the High Court of Gujarat.
Following his enrolment in 1982, Justice Shah practiced in the Gujarat High Court. He served as an Additional Standing Counsel for the Central Government and has also appeared for the Central Bureau of Investigation. He was appointed an additional judge of the Gujarat High Court in March 2004. Justice Shah was appointed as a judge of the Gujarat High Court on March 7, 2004, and later, in August 2018, he was sworn in as the Chief Justice of the Patna High Court.
Justice Rastogi (born on June 18, 1958) took oath as a Judge of the Rajasthan High Court on September 02, 2004. He was the Executive Chairman of the Rajasthan State Legal Services Authority from October 14, 2013 to October 18, 2016, during which time, he achieved National awards from National Legal Services Authority for three consecutive years, in addition to several other achievements. Justice Rastogi officiated as the Administrative Judge of the Rajasthan High Court from July 19, 2014 to February 28, 2018. He was also the Acting Chief Justice of the Rajasthan High Court from April 14, 2016 to May 13, 2016. Justice Rastogi on transfer took oath as the Chief Justice of the High Court of Tripura on March 01, 2018.