Supreme Court Collegium proposes appointment of 26 new judges to Allahabad High Court

The Supreme Court Collegium has proposed 26 judicial officers and advocates to fill up vacancies in the Allahabad High Court.

The Collegium, in two separate proposals, has recommended 14 judicial officers and 12 advocates, the latter batch of which include two senior women lawyers, Garima Parshad and Swarupama Chaturvedi, from the Supreme Court Bar. The Supreme Court Collegium had met on September 1. The statements were published on Tuesday (September 2, 2025) on the court website.

The two proposals together form one of the largest recommendations for fresh appointments to a single High Court in recent months.

The Allahabad High Court tops the number of vacancies, at 76, among High Courts in the country as on September 1, according to Department of Justice (DoJ) statistics. It has a sanctioned judicial strength of 160 judges. Currently, the High Court is functioning with a working judicial strength of 84 judges, a little over half of its sanctioned number.

The DoJ figures of September 1 show that Bombay, Calcutta and Punjab and Haryana High Courts also have considerable vacancies. Bombay has a sanctioned strength of 94 judges, of which the working strength is 68 and 26 vacancies. Calcutta has a total sanctioned strength of 72 judges with 48 judges currently working and vacancies numbering 24. The Punjab and Haryana High Court has a total sanctioned strength of 84 judges with a current working strength of 60 with 25 vacancies.

The September 1 recommendations were preceded by an August 27 Collegium proposal to transfer/repatriate judges across nine State High Courts. The Collegium had proposed the shuffling of 14 judges serving in the nine High Courts of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Kerala, Madras, Rajasthan, Allahabad, Gujarat and Calcutta.

The Collegium has proposed judicial officers Dr. Ajay Kumar- II, Chawan Prakash, Divesh Chandra Samant, Prashant Mishra-I, Tarun Saxena, Rajeev Bharti, Padam Narain Mishra, Lakshmi Kant Shukla, Jai Prakash Tiwari, Devendra Singh-I, Sanjiv Kumar, Vani Ranjan Agrawal, Achal Sachdev and Babita Rani for appointment as Allahabad High Court judges.

Besides Ms. Parshad and Ms. Chaturvedi, the Collegium recommended advocates Vivek Saran, Adnan Ahmad, Vivek Kumar Singh, Sudhanshu Chauhan, Abdhesh Kumar Chaudhary, Jai Krishna Upadhyay, Siddharth Nandan, Kunal Ravi Singh, Indrajeet Shukla and Satya Veer Singh as Allahabad High Court judges.