Supreme Court gets 2 new judges, K V Viswanathan and Prashant Kumar Mishra take oath

Chief Justice of Andhra Pradesh High Court Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and senior advocate Kalapati Venkataraman Viswanathan took oath as judges of the Supreme Court today. Chief Justice of India Justice DY Chandrachud administered the oath of office and secrecy to the two new judges in the presence of all the judges. After the retirement of Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and MR Shah, the strength of judges in the Supreme Court came down from 34 to 32. Now with these two new judges, the Supreme Court has regained its full strength of 34 judges.

Earlier, newly appointed Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal had informed about the appointment of two new Supreme Court judges through his Twitter account. He wrote, ‘Exercising the powers conferred by the Constitution of India, Hon’ble President, Hon’ble Chief Justice, have been pleased on appointment of Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Senior Advocate K.V. Viswanathan.

Kalapati Venkataraman Vishwanathan has also been a former Additional Solicitor General. After the retirement of Justice JB Pardiwala, K.V. Vishwanathan will be the Chief Justice of India on 11 August 2030. If it happens, he will also be the fourth Chief Justice of India to be appointed directly from the Bar following SM Sikri, UU Lalit and PS Narasimha. The Supreme Court Collegium had sent the recommendation of both the names to the Centre before two days, which was approved by the government on Thursday.

Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra was serving as the Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court prior to his appointment to the Supreme Court. He has also served as the Acting Chief Justice of the Chhattisgarh High Court. He is the first Chhattisgarhian to become a Supreme Court judge. Justice KM Joseph, Justice Ajay Rastogi and Justice V Ramasubramanian are retiring during the summer vacation.