Supreme Court Collegium Recommends Three Judicial Officers for Chhattisgarh High Court

The Supreme Court Collegium has recommended judicial officers Santosh Sharma, Sushma Sawant and Sudhir Kumar for appointment as judges of the Chhattisgarh High Court, according to a resolution issued this week.

Elevations from the subordinate judiciary to a state high court follow a defined constitutional process: the Collegium of the high court concerned first recommends names to the Supreme Court Collegium, which then reviews the recommendation, weighing seniority, judgment quality and integrity reports from intelligence agencies, before forwarding it to the Union Law Ministry for the President's approval. All three names cleared this week originate from within the district judiciary rather than the practising bar, a composition the Chhattisgarh High Court Collegium had proposed in its own initial recommendation earlier this year.

Chhattisgarh High Court, based in Bilaspur, has operated with a sanctioned judge strength that has repeatedly run short of its approved capacity in recent years, a shortfall common across smaller state high courts that contributes to rising pendency in both civil and criminal appeals. The court's sanctioned strength stands at 22 judges, and vacancies have periodically left it functioning at well below that number, with the working strength dipping into the mid-teens at points over the past two years according to figures the court has periodically placed on record.

Elevating officers from the judicial service, as opposed to appointing practising advocates directly, is intended to bring trial-court experience onto the high court bench, since these officers have typically spent between two and three decades hearing cases as civil judges, additional district judges and district judges before their names come up for consideration by the high court's own Collegium and, subsequently, the Supreme Court's.

The recommendation now moves to the Union Law Ministry, which vets the names for any pending complaints or disqualifying factors before the file goes to the President for formal appointment, a process that has historically taken anywhere from a few weeks to several months depending on the volume of pending Collegium recommendations awaiting clearance nationally at any given time.

Chhattisgarh, a relatively young state carved out of Madhya Pradesh in 2000, has built its High Court bench largely through district judiciary elevations alongside a smaller number of bar appointments, and this batch continues that pattern, reflecting the limited size of the practising bar in a state whose legal profession is still comparatively young relative to older high courts.

The state's district judiciary, from which all three of this week's recommended names are drawn, has itself expanded substantially since Chhattisgarh's creation, giving the High Court Collegium a larger pool of senior district judges to consider for elevation than was available in the state's earlier years as a separate judicial jurisdiction.

The Collegium's resolution was issued this week and the three names now await Law Ministry clearance before formal notification by the President under Article 217 of the Constitution.