SC Collegium Clears 8 Names for Delhi HC, 15 Judicial Appointments Across 4 High Courts

The Supreme Court Collegium, headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, has approved the recommendation of eight judicial officers for appointment as judges of the Delhi High Court, while clearing seven more names for three other High Courts in a move that comes amid a continuing shortage of judges across India's higher judiciary.

The decision, taken at the Collegium's meeting on September 10, covers 15 judicial officers across four High Courts. Besides Delhi, the Collegium recommended Yash Paul Bourney for the High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, while Manoj Prasad, Akhil Kumar and Ram Sharma were cleared for the Jharkhand High Court and Usharani, K S Bharath Kumar and Nerale Veerabhadraiah Bhavani for the Karnataka High Court.

For the Delhi High Court, the eight judicial officers are Gurvinder Pal Singh, Nivedita Anil Sharma, Nisha Sahay Saxena, Sanjay Sharma-I, Bharat Parashar, Aditi Choudhary, Dinesh Bhatt and Arun Bhardwaj. Three of the eight nominees are women — Nivedita Anil Sharma, Nisha Sahay Saxena and Aditi Choudhary. Across all four High Courts, five of the 15 recommended judicial officers are women.

The Delhi recommendations are significant given the court's existing vacancies. The High Court has a sanctioned strength of 60 judges but was functioning with 44, leaving 16 vacancies. If all eight recommendations are formally cleared, its working strength could rise to 52, effectively filling half of the existing vacancies and increasing its strength by about 18 per cent.

The move comes amid a broader vacancy crisis in the higher judiciary. As of July 31, 2026, 341 of the 1,122 sanctioned High Court judge posts were vacant. A later September 6 snapshot put the vacancy figure at 304, reflecting appointments, retirements and other changes in the intervening period.

The Collegium's recommendations also follow reports that 25 earlier recommendations for High Court judges remained pending with the Centre, including the long-pending recommendation of advocate Saurabh Kirpal, first made in October 2017.

The latest recommendations do not amount to immediate appointments. The names must pass through the remaining government and constitutional procedures before formal notification. The distinction is important: the judicial officers become High Court judges only after the appointment process is completed.

The latest exercise also follows the filling of Chief Justice positions in all 25 High Courts, shifting greater attention towards ordinary judge vacancies. For Delhi, the eight proposed elevations could provide a meaningful boost to judicial capacity, although infrastructure, staffing, procedural delays and case management will continue to influence the court's ability to tackle its workload.