Collegium Recommends Elevation Of Chief Justice Prasanna Varale As A Judge Of Supreme Court, Recommends New CJ For Karnataka HC

The Supreme Court Collegium has recommended the elevation of Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale of Karnataka High Court as a Judge of the Supreme Court of India. The Collegium has also recommended the appointment of Justice P S Dinesh Kumar of the Karnataka High Court as its new Chief Justice. 

Justice Varle is number 6 in the combined all India seniority of High Court Judges. His parent High Court is the Bombay High Court. Two judges of the Collegium, the CJI, and Justice Gavai are also from the Bombay High Court.

The Collegium comprising the five senior-most judges of the Court viz. CJI DY Chandrachud, Justice Sanjiv Khanna,  Justice B R Gavai, Justice Surya Kant, and Justice  Aniruddha Bose has made the recommendation.

"The Supreme Court of India has operated almost throughout last year with full strength of thirty-four Judges and, therefore, could achieve the distinction of recording an unprecedented rate of disposal by disposing of 52191 cases in the calendar year 2023. A vacancy has arisen on retirement of Mr Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul on 25 December 2023. Bearing in mind that the workload of judges has increased considerably, it has become necessary to ensure that the Court has full working judge-strength at all times. The Collegium has, therefore, decided to fill up the sole existing vacancy by recommending a name", says the resolution passed today.

The resolution notes that Justice Varale was appointed as a Judge of the High Court of Bombay on 18 July 2008. He was elevated as Chief Justice of the High Court of Karnataka on 15 October 2022 and has been performing very well there. "Justice Prasanna B Varale has acquired considerable experience as a Judge of the High Court of Bombay and as the Chief Justice of the High Court of Karnataka for more than a year. The judgments authored by him deal with variety of issues in every field of law. He is a competent judge with unimpeachable conduct and integrity and has throughout maintained high standard of professional ethics. Before his elevation as a Judge of the High Court, he practised at the Bar for over 23 years in civil, criminal, labour and administrative law matters in District and Sessions Court and in Constitutional matters at the High Court Bench at Aurangabad", as per the resolution.

In the resolution to appoint Justice P S Dinesh Kumar as the CJ of Karnataka High Court, the Collegium of three senior most judges of the Supreme Court notes that the judge is to demit office on superannuation on 24 February 2024 and will have a tenure as a Chief Justice of little over a month.

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