The Supreme Court Collegium on September 28 recommended Gujarat High Court Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal for appointment as a judge of the Supreme Court. The five-member Collegium, headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, cleared her name along with Delhi High Court Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Telangana High Court Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh, The Tribune reported. The Centre has to notify the appointments before any of the three judges moves to Delhi.
Three years at the head of the Gujarat High Court
Justice Agarwal took charge in Ahmedabad on July 23, 2023, as the court’s 29th Chief Justice. She came from the Allahabad High Court, her parent court, where she joined the bench as an additional judge on November 21, 2011, according to career details carried by Madhyamam and an IANS report published by The Hans India. She is the second woman to lead the Gujarat High Court.
The Collegium’s other two picks also run large courts: Justice Upadhyaya heads the Delhi High Court and, like Justice Agarwal, began his judicial career at Allahabad. Justice Singh, from the Jharkhand High Court, now heads the Telangana bench.
The retirement arithmetic
Justice Agarwal was born on April 30, 1966. High Court judges retire at 62 under the Constitution, so she would have left the Gujarat bench in April 2028. Supreme Court judges serve until 65, which would give her a tenure in the apex court running to April 2031 if the Centre clears the recommendation.
That extra time matters for Gujarat litigants in one practical sense. A Chief Justice who leaves for the Supreme Court opens the top post in Ahmedabad well before a scheduled retirement. By convention, the President names the senior-most puisne judge as acting Chief Justice until the Collegium recommends a permanent successor and the Centre notifies the name. Neither the Collegium nor the government has said who that will be for Gujarat.
What changes for the court and its users
The Chief Justice of a High Court is the master of the roster. She decides which benches hear public interest litigation, bail matters, tax appeals and service disputes, and she sets administrative priorities such as e-filing, court infrastructure and recruitment for the district judiciary. A change at the top usually brings a fresh roster, and lawyers and litigants with long-pending cases watch that list closely because it decides which judge will take up their matter.
The Gujarat High Court also handles a steady flow of cases in which the state government is a party, from land acquisition to municipal decisions. The Chief Justice usually presides over the first bench, which takes up PILs and suo motu cases on civic failures such as roads, bridges and pollution, so the choice of successor will shape how the court handles those petitions.
What to watch
- Government notification: The Union Law Ministry has to process the three names. Timelines have varied from days to several weeks in past rounds.
- Acting Chief Justice: Once Justice Agarwal takes oath in the Supreme Court, the government will notify an acting Chief Justice for Gujarat.
- A permanent appointment: The Collegium will then recommend a full-time Chief Justice. Recent practice has been to bring in a judge from another High Court.
Sources: The Tribune, Madhyamam, IANS via The Hans India
This report was compiled and written with AI assistance from publicly reported sources, and reviewed for accuracy.