CJI releases Collegium data on High Court judge appointments

Outgoing Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai placed in the public domain the names and social details of candidates approved by his Collegium, with women as a class outnumbering those from Other Backward Classes, Backward Classes and Scheduled Castes.

Of a total 129 names considered for High Court appointments since May 14, when Chief Justice Gavai took over as top judge, the Collegium approved 93 names. The candidates hailed from both the lower judiciary and the Bar.

Of these, women were 15 while OBC/BC candidates were 11, names from Scheduled Caste communities were 10, minorities 13 and those related to judges were five.

Four of the women candidates belonged to minority communities while one hailed from a Scheduled Caste community.

Chief Justice Gavai, who is retiring on November 23, has continued this tradition of transparency begun by his predecessor Justice Sanjiv Khanna in May 2025.

In May, the Supreme Court had released the entire details of 221 names approved by the Supreme Court Collegiums headed by former CJIs, Justices (retired) D.Y. Chandrachud and Khanna.

Those figures had shown that only half of the names recommended by the State governments and High Court Collegiums were approved by the Supreme Court Collegium after intensive vetting and background checks.

A total of 303 names were recommended during Justice Chandrachud’s two-year tenure as top judge from November 9, 2022 to November 10, 2024. The Chandrachud Collegium had approved a little over half, 170 names.

While a dozen of these names which passed muster were related to sitting or former Supreme Court or High Court judges, the number of names drawn from Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Most Backward and Backward communities were in single digits, seven, five and seven, respectively.

Twenty-one candidates approved by the Chandrachud Collegium had belonged to the Other Backward Communities (OBC), women numbered 28 and 23 candidates were drawn from the minorities.

From November 10, 2024, with Justice Khanna helming the Collegium, it had received 103 names of which 51 were approved, again a little over half. Among these Collegium approved candidates, only two had relatives in the judiciary.

Seventeen names approved by previous Collegiums were appointed as High Court judges during Chief Justice Gavai’s tenure as top judge. Of this, one was a woman advocate from a minority community.

However, again, the number of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates approved for High Court appointments had remained in the single digits, one and two, respectively.