Ten new judges were appointed to the Telangana High Court on Tuesday, March 22 after being recommended by the Supreme Court Collegium. The appointment of the judges has been approved by the President of India, Ramnath Kovind. The newly appointed judges include Kasoju Surendhar, Surepalli Nanda, Mummaneni Sudheer Kumar, Juvvadi Sridevi, Natcharaju Shravan Kumar Venkat, Gunnu Anupama Chakravarthy, Maturi Girija Priyadarsini, Sambasivarao Naidu, Anugu Santhosh Reddy and Deveraju Nagarjurn.
The Department of Justice in the Law Ministry issued a notification announcing the appointments. In a tweet, the department said five of those appointed were advocates, while the rest were judicial officers.
According to the vacancy statement available on the Law Ministry website, the sanctioned strength of the Telangana High Court is 42, while the actual or working strength is 19 — a shortfall of 23 judges. Once the new judges take oath, the vacancy will come down significantly. The newly appointed judges are likely to take oath on Thursday, March 24, according to reports.
Earlier in February, the Supreme Court Collegium had approved the elevation of 12 judges and judicial officers as judges in the Telangana High Court. These included Kasoju Surendhar alias K Surender, Chada Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy, Surepalli Nanda, Mummineni Sudheer Kumar, Juvvadi Sridevi alias Kuchadi Sridevi, Mirza Safiullah Baig and Natcharaju Shravan Kumar Venkat. The judicial officers who will get the elevation are G Anupama Chakravarthy, MG Priyadarshini, Sambasivarao Naidu, A Santosh Reddy and Dr D Nagarajun.
In June 2021, the bench strength of Telangana High Court, which has over 2.3 lakh pending cases, increased from 24 to 42 judges.
Seven judges including four women were appointed by the President of India in October last year. It was in 2020 that the names of the seven judges were proposed by the Collegium of Telangana High Court to the Supreme Court under judicial quota. The Supreme Court Collegium headed by Chief Justice NV Ramana gave his consent in August 2021 and forwarded the names to the Union government.