The acting Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court, Justice Rajesh Bindal will be appointed as Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court. The Supreme Court Collegium has recommended the appointment of Justice Rajesh Bindal as the Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court while recommending the appointment of eight chief justices in different high courts in the country.
At present, there are eight high courts namely Allahabad, Calcutta, Chattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Sikkim and Telangana headed by acting Chief Justices. Currently, Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari is serving as the Acting Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court.
Reportedly, the three-member collegium, headed by Chief Justice of India N V Ramana, has decided to recommend names of judges for elevation as chief justices of the high courts of Allahabad, Calcutta, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Telangana, Meghalaya, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.
The Collegium has recommended the transfer of Chief Justice of Andhra Pradesh High Court Justice Arup Kumar Goswami to the Chhattisgarh High Court, Chief Justice of Madhya Pradesh High Court Justice Mohd Rafiq to the Himachal Pradesh High Court. The Collegium has also recommended that Chief Justice of Tripura High Court, Justice Akil Kureshi be transferred to Rajasthan High Court as its Chief Justice. Further, Chief Justice of Rajasthan High Court Justice Indrajit Mahanty has been transferred to the Tripura High Court and Chief Justice Meghalaya High Court Justice Biswanath Somadder to the Sikkim High Court.
The collegium has recommended Justices Prakash Srivastava, Prashant Kumar Mishra, Ritu Raj Awasthi, Satish Chandra Sharma, Ranjit V More, Aravind Kumar and RV Malimath to the Centre for appointing them as chief justices of different High Courts. Justices Satish Chandra Sharma has been recommended as CJ of Telangana High Court, Ranjit V More for Meghalaya HC, Aravind Kumar for Gujarat HC and R V Malimath has been recommended for appointment as chief justice of Madhya Pradesh High Court.
During the first week of this month, the collegium had recommended 68 names including 10 women for their appointment as high court judges. The law ministry is yet to act on these names. Earlier, the collegium had made nine recommendations for appointment as SC judges which were cleared by the law ministry.
Justice Rajesh Bindal
It is notable that Justice Rajesh Bindal was dragged into controversies as the acting chief justice of Calcutta HC. He was sworn as a judge of Calcutta High Court on January 5 this year and was later appointed to perform the duties of the office of the Chief Justice of the High Court at Calcutta with effect April 29. His appointment as acting chief justice came at a time when the assembly election in West Bengal was in the final leg.
Justice Bindal apparently earned the ire of the Mamata Banerjee led ruling dispensation Trinamool Congress after the High Court cancelled the bail granted to Trinamool Congress leaders including senior ministers Subrata Mukherjee and Firhad Hakim, Trinamool Congress MLA Madan Mitra and former minister Sovan Chatterjee in Narada sting case. They were arrested by the CBI on May 17 in connection with this case. But they were granted bail by the special CBI court on the same day.
The West Bengal chief minister was criticized for allegedly storming and laying siege upon the office of the Central Bureau of Investigation on May 17 where arrested accused of the Narada sting case were kept. The court had also criticized West Bengal Law Minister Moloy Ghatak who had allegedly mobbed the special CBI court which had heard and granted bail to the arrested.
Acting chief Justice Bindal is also heading the five-judge bench which is hearing the Narada sting case. The bench on June 9 had also disallowed the West Bengal chief minister and her cabinet colleague (law minister) from filing fresh affidavits to counter allegations made by the CBI regarding their conduct on 17 May.
However, the Supreme Court, later on, directed the Calcutta HC to accept their fresh affidavits after the duo challenged the move of the bench of the Calcutta High Court.
The Trinamool Congress had also objected to Justice Bindal assigning Justice Kausik Chanda to hear the election petition filed by Mamata Banerjee challenging the result of the Nandigram assembly seat where she was defeated by Suvendu Adhikari of the BJP.
A five-judge bench headed by Justice Bindal had directed the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to hold probes into post-poll violence in the state where a large number of BJP leaders and workers were allegedly murdered, tortured and raped. The court ordered an NHRC probe while hearing a bunch of PIL filed at the Calcutta High Court. The bench had also ordered the CBI probe of the poll violence in West Bengal.
The Trinamool Congress MLA Ashok Kumar Deb who is also the chairperson of the Bar Council of West Bengal in his capacity as a lawyer had demanded his removal.
