NEW DELHI, May 19: The Supreme Court was restored to its full sanctioned strength of 34 judges after the Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud administered the oath of office to two new judges, Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice KV Vishwanathan, on Friday.
Justices Mishra and Vishwanathan would replace Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and M.R. Shah, who retired earlier this month.
But it was only for a day that the top court functioned with full strength as later in the day three judges were accorded farewell. Justices K.M. Joseph, Ajay Rastogi and V. Ramasubramanian will all be retiring in June when the Supreme Court will be enjoying summer vacation. Friday was the last working day of the Supreme Court before it went into recess until reopening on July 2. All three judges shared Ceremonial Benches with the Chief Justice of India in the First Court as per convention.
Justices Mishra and Vishwanathan were sworn in as judges in the presence of the full court in an auditorium filled with members of the Bar.
The government had cleared their appointments in record speed. The Collegium had recommended them for appointment to the Supreme Court on May 16. The government’s notifications were published on May 18 and coincided with the first day in office of the new law minister Arjun Meghwal. Meghwal also took care to tweet that the two names had been cleared.
The clearance of the two names within a 48-hour window is a welcome change from the erratic manner in which the government has treated collegium recommendations for appointments, taking months to approve some while acting quickly on others. The roller-coaster had been so apparent in recent months that a Bench led by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul had observed how the government at times cleared names “overnight” but kept some other names pending for months together without offering an explanation.
The acrimonious comments made by the previous law minister Kiren Rijiju against the Collegium system of judicial appointments had also not helped. At one point, the court had said the delay on the part of the government in clearing names recommended by the Collegium was a “direct interference in the administration of justice.”
Justice Mishra was the Chief Justice of Andhra Pradesh High Court before his appointment to the Supreme Court. His appointment wins the State of Chhattisgarh a representation on the Supreme Court Bench.
Justice Vishwanathan, a direct appointee from the bar, has had a long and difficult journey to the top court. The 57-year-old Vishwanathan who hails from Tamil Nadu’s Pollachi town, came to Delhi in 1988 and started practising in the Supreme Court. His father, KV Venkataraman, has been a public prosecutor in Coimbatore.
Justice Vishwanathan’s professional journey began when he came to Delhi in 1988 with a desire to practice as a lawyer in the Supreme Court. He stayed in a central government housing society in RK Puram Sector 1 with a friend on a ₹ 200 monthly rent. The area had a significant Tamil population, so he had no difficulty finding a place to live. Justice Vishwanathan lived near a Murugan temple in the area and used to eat at the nearby Mahalingam mess. He later shifted to Mohammadpur village, where he lived with three more people. Justice Vishwanathan worked as a junior with advocate CS Vaidyanathan, who later appeared for Lord Ramlala in the Ayodhya case. He was Vaidyanathan’s junior from 1988 to 90 and appeared in the Supreme Court, High Court, and lower courts.
He then worked as a junior with senior advocate KK Venugopal from 1990 to 1995. Justice Vishwanathan, who was made a senior advocate in the Supreme Court in 2009, has also served as an additional solicitor for the central government. He has represented many important cases in the Supreme Court and has been appointed as amicus curiae (friend of the court) in many highly sensitive cases.
Justice KV Vishwanathan will be the third Chief Justice of India from Tamil Nadu. Previously, Justice M Patanjali Sastri served as CJI from 1951 to 1954 and in 2013, Justice P Sathasivam held this post for about nine months.
Justice Vishwanathan would be in line to be the 58th Chief Justice of India in August 2030, succeeding Justice J.B. Pardiwala as top judge. He is also only the ninth lawyer to be elevated directly to the Supreme Court Bench. If appointed Chief Justice of India seven years from now, Justice Vishwanathan would only be the fourth direct appointee from the Bar to make it as top judge.
The Supreme Court would see two more retirements in the current year. Justice S. Ravindra Bhat retires in October and Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, who is number two judge in the Supreme Court, retires in December.
(Manas Dasgupta)
