MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Tuesday welcomed 14 new judges to the panel, thereby raising its strength to 82, against the sanctioned strength of 94 judges. Acting Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar administered the oath of office to the advocates, whose names were recommended by the Supreme Court Collegium on August 20 for elevation as additional judges of the high court.
After the collegium met on August 19, the following advocates were recommended for appointment on the high court: Siddheshwar Sundarrao Thombre, Mehroz Ashraf Khan Pathan, Ranjitsinha Raja Bhonsale, Sandesh Dadasaheb Patil, Shreeram Vinayak Shirsat, Hiten Shamrao Venegavkar, Rajnish Ratnakar Vyas, Raj Damodar Wakode, Nandesh Shankarrao Deshpande, Amit Satyavan Jamsandekar, Ashish Sahadev Chavan, Vaishali Nimbajirao Patil-Jadhav, Abasaheb Dharmaji Shinde, and Farhan Parvez Dubash. Among these, advocates Sandesh Patil and Shreeram Shirsat were serving as Special Public Prosecutors (SPP), representing central agencies such as Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Enforcement Directorate (ED) and National Investigation Agency (NIA), before the high court.
Advocate Hiten Venegavkar also served on the Central panel as the Chief Public Prosecutor for Maharashtra before the high court.
Raj Damodar Wakode is the nephew of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Bhushan R Gavai.
On August 13, three new judges – Ajit Kadethankar, Sushil Ghodeswar, and Aarti Arun Sathe – took oath as additional judges of the high court, which currently functions with 50 permanent judges and 19 additional judges.
According to the National Judicial Data Grid, more than 6.6 lakh cases are pending with the high court at its principal seat in Mumbai and benches at Nagpur, Aurangabad, and Goa and to clear the pendency, at the current strength of 69 judges, each high court judge would have to dispose of at least 24 cases everyday without any holidays or vacation for a year.
Of the pending cases, only 24% were instituted last year, and over 76% are more than a year old. A fourth of the pending cases commenced before 2015, another between 2015 and 2020, and the rest of the cases after 2020.