SC gets two new judges: CJI administers oath of office to Justice Mishra, senior advocate Viswanathan

Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and senior advocate Kalpathy Venkataraman Viswanathan were on Friday administered the oath of office as judges of the Supreme Court by Chief Justice of India DY ChandrachudThe new judges were administered the oath of office during a ceremony at the apex courts auditoriumWith the swearingin of Justice Mishra and Justice Viswanathan the number of judges in the Supreme Court reached its sanctioned strength of 34However the apex court will be at full strength only for a brief period as Friday is also the last working day of three judges who are set to retire in JuneJustice KM Joseph Justice Ajay Rastogi and Justice V Ramasubramanian are set to demit office next month during the summer vacation which will run from May 22 to July 2Justice Joseph is set to retire on June 16 Justice Rastogi on June 17 and Justice Ramasubramanian on June 29 Justice Krishna Murari will demit office on July 8Also Read SC allows Jallikattu a victory says TNJustice Viswanathan will become the Chief Justice of India upon the retirement of Justice JB Pardiwala on August 11 2030 and remain in the post till May 25 2031The warrant of appointments of Justice Mishra and Justice Viswanathan as apex court judges was issued from the office of President Droupadi Murmu on ThursdayTheir appointments were announced by new Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal on TwitterWith the retirements of Justice Dinesh Maheshwari and Justice MR Shah in the past seven days the strength of judges in the Supreme Court had fallen to 32The collegium headed by the Chief Justice of India on May 16 recommended to the Centre the names of Justice Mishra and senior advocate Viswanathan as apex court judgesThe Centre cleared their appointments within two working daysJustice Mishra was appointed as a judge of the High Court of Chhattisgarh on December 10 2009 He was appointed as Chief Justice of the High Court of Andhra Pradesh on October 13 2021He has served as a high court judge for more than 13 years and ranks 21st in the allIndia seniority list of judges of high courtsJustice Viswanathan will become the 58th Chief Justice of India in August 2030 for a period of more than nine monthsBorn on May 26 1966 Justice Viswanathan will join an elite list of lawyers to reach the position of the Chief Justice of India after being directly elevated to the apex court bench from the BarJustice SM Sikri was the first Chief Justice of India to be directly elevated to the apex court bench from the Bar Justice UU Lalit was the secondSitting apex court judge Justice PS Narasimha will become the third Chief Justice of India to be directly elevated from the BarAs a lawyer Justice Viswanathan has appeared in a wide range of cases on diverse issues including Constitutional criminal commercial and insolvency laws and arbitrationDuring the recent hearings in the top court on a batch of pleas seeking legal validation for samesex marriages Justice Viswanathan had argued before a fivejudge Constitution Bench for one of the petitionersThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever