Behind the composition of collegium picks

High court judges are appointed by the Supreme Court collegium, which includes the Chief Justice of India and two senior-most judges of the Supreme Court. During this period, the collegium led by justice Chandrachud approved 170 of 303 proposed candidates, while the collegium under justice Khanna approved 51 of 103. Proposals to the collegium are made by the high court collegium comprising the chief justice of the high court and two senior-most judges.

Of the total 221 recommendations, 167 (75.57%) are from the General (non-SC-ST-OBC) category. The number of appointees from Other Backward Classes (OBCs) stands at 39 (17.65%). The list has also given categories within OBCs such as MBC (most backward class), BC, BC-A, and BC-B. Eight recommendations (3.62%) are from the Scheduled Castes (SC), and seven (3.17%) are from the Scheduled Tribes (ST). 31 of the 221 recommendations (14%) were from a community which is a religious minority.

The data also shows the gender composition of recommendations. A total of 34 women were recommended for appointment as High Court judges—28 during justice Chandrachud’s tenure and six under justice Khanna. Among the 34 women, 21 belong to the General category, 10 are from OBC communities, and three are from SC/ST groups. Five of the 34 women are from a minority religious community.

Under justice Chandrachud, 130 of 170 recommendations came from the General category, 28 from OBC, seven from SC, and five from ST. Under justice Khanna, 37 of 51 recommendations until April were from the General category, 11 from OBC, one from SC, and two from ST.

The High Courts of Allahabad and Gujarat each saw 21 recommendations, the highest among all courts. They were followed by the Bombay High Court, which had 19 new judges recommended during the same period.

Only 14 out of the 221 total recommendations (6.3%) were for people related to sitting or retired Supreme Court or High Court judges. Only one of these 14 recommendations is pending approval from the government. This is the recommendation for Rohit Kapoor, whose father-in-law (Amar Dutt Sharma) is a retired judge of the Punjab and Haryana high court.

Some family connections among those recommended stand out. Nupur Bhati, appointed to the Rajasthan High Court in January 2023, serves alongside her husband, who is also a judge in the same court. Deeptendra Narayan Roy, appointed to the Gujarat High Court in October 2024, is the son of former Supreme Court judge G.N. Ray, who served from 1991 to 1998. Bibhu Datta Guru, appointed to the Chhattisgarh High Court in August 2024, is the brother-in-law of sitting Supreme Court judge Prashant Mishra. Yogendra Kumar Purohit, a judge of the Rajasthan High Court, has two brothers-in-law who serve as judges in the same court.

To be sure, the number of recommendations of family members could possibly be higher if all family relations were included. The data uploaded on May 5 considers only eight kinds of relations: father, mother, brother, sister or their counterparts in the family of in-laws. No separate details for spouse were mentioned.

What makes the list released on Monday unique is the fact that it is the first effort at providing granular demographic data on recommendations of the Supreme Court collegium giving a clear picture of the social and institutional composition of these recommendations.