Bombay High Court Chief Justice: Justice Mahesh Chandra Tripathi has been appointed as the 50th Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court, while the court’s incumbent acting chief justice, Justice Ravindra Ghuge, has been appointed Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court. The appointments were approved by the President late on Saturday after being recommended by the Supreme Court collegium, according to a report by Loksatta.
The change in leadership has immediate implications for the Bombay High Court’s full bench hearing on the Maharashtra law providing 10 per cent reservation to the Maratha community in government jobs and education. The hearing has been continuing regularly for about a year before a full bench headed by Justice Ghuge.
With Justice Ghuge’s elevation, a new full bench will have to be constituted to hear the matter, and the proceedings will have to begin afresh, the report said. Arguments by the petitioners and parties opposing the reservation have already been completed. The state government’s submissions, led by Advocate General Milind Sathe, were still under way when the change was announced.
Justice Ghuge had served at the Bombay High Court for nearly 13 years. He was appointed acting Chief Justice of the court in June this year. His transfer to the Calcutta High Court means that the bench overseeing one of Maharashtra’s most closely watched constitutional and public-policy disputes will change before the state’s arguments are completed.
Justice Mahesh Chandra Tripathi, who is currently serving at the Allahabad High Court, is the second-most senior judge after the Chief Justice there and has handled the work of the Allahabad High Court’s principal bench. His appointment makes him the 50th Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court.
Justice Tripathi obtained his law degree from Lucknow University in 1990 and enrolled as an advocate on January 11, 1992. He primarily practised in civil matters and served as Uttar Pradesh’s additional standing counsel from October 2007. He was appointed an additional judge of the Allahabad High Court on September 27, 2013, and became a permanent judge on April 10, 2015.
The immediate administrative step for the Bombay High Court will be the appointment of its new full bench for the Maratha reservation case. The case will then proceed before the reconstituted bench, with the state government’s arguments and the submissions already recorded forming the next procedural context.
