Senior Advocate Indu Malhotra was sworn in as a Supreme Court judge on Friday morning. The swearing-in ceremony of the newly-appointed judge took place at the apex court. Malhotra was administered oath of office by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra.
Indu Malhotra is the first woman lawyer to be elevated directly from the Bar to the Supreme Court.
Malhotra will be the seventh woman judge of the top court. She will join Justice M Fathima Beevi, Justice Sujata V Manohar, Justice Ruma Pal, Justice Gyan Sudha Misra and Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai and Justice R Banumati. Currently, Justice R Banumathi is the lone woman judge in the apex court.
Malhotra was designated as a senior advocate in 2007, only the second woman to be designated a senior advocate by the Supreme Court, after Justice Leila Seth.
Her name was recommended by the Supreme Court's Collegium in January, and approved by the Centre, on Wednesday.
Apart from Indu, Uttarakhand Chief Justice KM Joseph was also recommended for elevation to the Supreme Court. However, the Centre asked the collegium to reconsider the same.
The government returned the collegium's recommendation to elevate Justice K M Joseph as a Supreme Court judge, saying the proposal was not in accordance with the top court's parameters and there was adequate representation of Kerala in the higher judiciary from where he hails.
Justifying its stand of returning the recommendation, the Centre today sent a detailed note to Chief Justice Dipak Misra giving reasons to the Supreme Court collegium for its decision, including that seniority may not be an important consideration to ensure regional representation. The note of the Union Law Ministry addressed to the CJI, who heads the five-member apex court collegium, said the proposal to reconsider Justice Joseph's name had the approval of President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
It said the apex court already has Justice Kurian Joseph, who was elevated as an Supreme Court judge on March 8, 2013 from the Kerala High Court and there were two other High Court Chief Justices, Justices T B Radhakrishnan and Antony Dominic, whose parent high court was Kerala. The note said at this stage, the elevation of one more judge from Kerala High Court as an apex court judge does not appear to be justified as it does not address the legitimate claims of the Chief Justices and puisne judges of many other high courts and "forestalls" the claim of other senior chief justices and puisne judges.
(With ANI and PTI inputs)
