Justice Ajay Kumar Mittal of the Punjab and Haryana High Court is set to be the next chief justice of the Delhi High Court. However, this decision of the Supreme Court collegium—as reported in the media—cannot be put in practice before September.

The Delhi High Court is at the moment handled by Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal.

The collegium has reportedly postponed the decision in the face of a technical issue. The sitting judge of the Delhi High Court, Justice SS Saron, is senior to Justice Ajay Kumar Mittal, and technically he would have been due for that post. However, Justice Saron is retiring on September 3. Hence, at the Supreme Court collegium, Justices Ranjan Gogoi and AK Sikri intervened to say that an announcement now would, in effect, mean a superseding of Justice Saron. The judges reportedly said that this would send out a wrong signal.

Hence the decision was postponed.

Gogoi is a part of the present collegium while Justice Sikri is not, though both were consulted since both had been chief justices of Punjab and Haryana High Court.

Govt to appoint 44 HC judges

Meanwhile, the government, it has been reported, is appointing 44 high court judges. These names had been returned by the government to the collegium for reconsideration, but the collegium has been able to coax the government in taking them back in.

The following are the possible appointees: Allahabad High Court 29, Karnataka 2, Calcutta 7 and Madras 6.

This was the second time that this list was resubmitted to the government by the collegium, headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar.

So far the appointees have been 17, to the Bombay (14) and the Jammu and Kashmir high courts.

—India Legal Bureau