The Centre has notified the appointment of Justice Sanjay Yadav as the Acting Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court with effect from September 30.

Justice Yadav is the senior-most judge of the Madhya Pradesh High Court after its incumbent Chief Justice, Ajay Kumar Mittal, who is due to retire office on September 30.

In view of the same, the Centre has notified that Justice Yadav would be temporarily performing the duties of the Chief Justice from September 30 onwards. A notification to this effect was issued on Tuesday.

Justice Yadav has served as the Madhya Pradesh High Court's Acting Chief Justice for a stint in 2019 as well.

This was after the then Acting Chief Justice Ravi Shanker Jha was transferred to the Punjab and Haryana High Court as its Chief Justice and the next senior-most Judge, Justice JK Maheswari was transferred to the newly created Andhra Pradesh High Court as its first Chief Justice.

At the time, the proposed appointment of Justice Yadav as Acting Chief Justice had stirred some pushback among some sections of the Bar, which sought Justice Yadav's transfer out of the State to avoid this appointment.

On October 5, 2019, however, Justice Yadav's appointment as Acting Chief Justice was eventually cleared by the Centre. Chief Justice Mittal took charge as the High Court's next permanent Chief Justice in November that year.

Read the notification issued today: