For top judges, Madras HC stepping stone to apex court

CHENNAI: A stint, regardless of how long or short, as chief

justice

of the 156-year-old Madras high court appears likely to earn a judge elevation to the Supreme Court, trends over the past decade indicate.



Consider this: The chartered

high court

— one of three top courts, with the Bombay and Calcutta high courts, that the British set up in India — has had six chief justices since 2008. All of them, including the incumbent chief justice, Indira Banerjee, have been appointed apex court judges.

From the turn of the millennium, only three of five chief justices of the high court did not make it to the Supreme Court: Justice N K Jain, chief justice of the Madras high court from 2000-2001, before his transfer to the Karnataka high court; Justice B Subhashan Reddy (2001-04), before transfer to the Kerala high court; and Justice

Ajit Prakash Shah

(2005-08), before transfer to the Delhi high court.

V K Tahilramani of the Bombay high court, recently named CJ of the Madras high court, still has around two years of tenure, leaving her too with a good chance of making it to the Supreme Court.

While recommending Justice Tahilramani as new chief justice of Madras high court, the three-member Supreme Court collegium cited the fact that the Bombay high court had only one judge as a high court chief justice.

But things have not been that rosy for judges for whom the Madras high court is home court. The 75-judge court has just one judge, R Banumathi, in the apex court, and just one, R Sudhakar, as chief justice of a high court. He heads the Manipur high court, one of the country’s tiniest appeals courts, with just two junior judges. No judge from the Madras high court has been made head of an appeals court of equivalent size or importance.

The Manipur high court has 3,670 pending dockets (record of proceedings in a legal action). By contrast, the Madras high court, on an average, lists more than 3,500 cases for hearing daily.

At one point in the not so distant past, Tamil Nadu had four judges in the Supreme Court, including CJI P Sathasivam. Though then chief justice Sathasivam, followed by justice Ibrahim Kalifulla and Justice C Nagappan retired in quick succession, their vacancies did not pass on to judges from the Madras high court.

The tenure of Justice Banumathi, the sole representative from the Madras high court in the Supreme Court, ends in July 2020. Since 2008, the Calcutta high court had six CJs, but only three made it to the Supreme Court. The Bombay high court has had seven, including Tahilramani, but only three have gone on to be judges in the top court.