Judicial Appointments Tracker aims to provide monthly updates on the appointment status of a candidate from the time they are recommended by the Supreme Court Collegium until the appointment is cleared by the Central government..Below are the details of the recommendations made by the Collegium in February 2025 and their current status..February 5The Supreme Court Collegium on February 5 recommended the appointment of two judicial officers - Renu Bhatnagar and Rajneesh Kumar Gupta - as judges of the Delhi High Court.The Central government cleared the same on February 19 and the two took oath as High Court judges on February 21..The Collegium on February 5 recommended that three additional judges of the Telangana High Court and two additional judges of the Madras High Court be made permanent.The judges recommended to be made permanent were Justices Laxmi Narayana Alishetty, Anil Kumar Jukanti and Sujana Kalasikam of the Telangana High Court and Justices Venkatachari Lakshminarayanan and Periyasamy Vadamala of the Madras High Court.The Central government cleared both the above recommendations..February 20The Collegium on February 20 recommended the appointment of five advocates as judges of the Patna High Court.The advocates recommended for elevation were:(i) Alok Kumar Sinha;(ii) Ritesh Kumar;(iii) Soni Shrivastava;(iv) Sourendra Pandey; and(v) Ansul @ Anshul Raj.The Central government on March 7 cleared the names of three of them - Sinha, Pandey and Shrivastava.The names of Ritesh Kumar and Anshul Raj are yet to be cleared..The Collegium on the same date also recommended that four additional judges of the Madras High Court be made permanent. The same was cleared by the Central government on March 4.The Collegium also recommended that three additional judges of the Bombay High Court be confirmed as permanent High Court judges and one additional judge be given a tenure extension of one year.This too was cleared by the Central government on March 4. .February 25The Collegium recommended the appointment of five advocates as judges of the Calcutta High Court.The lawyers recommended were:- Smita Das De;- Reetobroto Kumar Mitra;- Md Talay Masood Siddiqui;- Krishnaraj Thaker; and- Om Narayan Rai.The Central government cleared the appointment of Das, Mitra and Rai on March 8.However, the names of Thaker and Siddiqui are yet to be cleared..Old recommendations cleared after delay.The month of February saw the Central government clearing an appointment more than three years after the Collegium first recommended the name. The government cleared the appointment of advocate Maneesh Sharma as a judge of the Rajasthan High Court. Sharma's name was recommended more than three years ago in October 2021.The government on February 12 also cleared the appointment of Tejas Karia as a judge of the Delhi High Court.Karia, a Disputes Resolution Partner at law firm Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas, was recommended for judgeship by the Collegium in August 2024. .The trend of clearing old Collegium recommendations continued with the government clearing the appointment of two lawyers - Harmeet Singh Grewal and Deepinder Singh Nalwa - as additional judges of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.The Supreme Court Collegium had first recommended their appointment in October 2023, along with three other lawyers. However, Grewal and Nalwa's names were initially not cleared by the Centre.The Court then reiterated its recommendation in January 2024, which was eventually cleared after more than a year on February 12, 2025.On the same day (February 12), the government also cleared the appointment of Advocate Alok Mahra as a judge of the Uttarakhand High Court, Advocate Taj Ali Moulasab Nadaf as a judge of the Karnataka High Court, advocate Ashish Shroti as a Madhya Pradesh High Court judge, judicial officer Chaitali Chatterjee (Das) as a judge of the Calcutta High Court and judicial officer Yarenjungla Longkumer as a judge of the Gauhati High Court.Like with Grewal and Nalwa, the Collegium had recommended the appointment of Mahra more than 15 months ago in October 2023.Nadaf was recommended by the Collegium more than 2 years ago in January 2023, while Shroti was recommended in October 2023.Chaitali Chatterjee and Longkumer were recommended by the Collegium in January 2024..The final numbers in February.To sum up, the Central government has withheld clearance for the appointment of four persons recommended by the Collegium for High Court judgeship in February. The four whose names have not been cleared are Ritesh Kumar and Anshul Raj to the Patna High Court and Md Talay Masood Siddiqui and Krishnaraj Thaker to the Calcutta High Court.Eight judges recommended in February were cleared for appointment to three High Courts (two in Delhi and three each in Patna and Calcutta).Besides these eight judges, nine other judges recommended by the Collegium much earlier in 2023 and 2024, were also cleared by the government. .Read Judicial Appointments Tracker of January here.
