CHENNAI: Batting for social diversity in judicial appointments, the Union govt has written to the Madras high court collegium to provide appropriate representation to women and candidates from the SC, ST and minority communities while appointing new judges, reports Suresh Kumar K.The request from Union law minister Arjun Ram Meghwal to new Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava came after Supreme Court returned a list of names proposed by the previous high court collegium for appointment as judges. The Supreme Court sought an updated shortlist based on a fresh evaluation of the original names and other potential candidates by the new members of the HC collegium. On April 29, then CJ Kalpathi Rajendran Shriram had forwarded a list of nine names – Krishnaswamy Govindarajan, E V Chandru alias E Chandrasekaran, P V Balasubramaniam, N C Ashok Kumar, R Gandhi, Hasan Mohamed Jinnah, M P Senthil, J Chandra Sundar Sashikumar and E Manoharan – to the apex court. Shriram has since taken over as CJ of Rajasthan high court while the other two collegium members have retired.Sources said Union law minister Meghwal’s request to “keep in view” deserving candidates among women, minorities, SC, ST and OBC comes amid a clamour for social parity in judge appointments. In recent years, Madras HC has had the highest number of judges representing backward classes, SC, ST and OBC. Of the 684 judges appointed to HCs between 2018 and 2024, the SC community accounted for 21, ST 14, OBC 82 and minorities 37 judges, according to the law ministry’s response to a question in the Lok Sabha last Dec.
