In a first, SC releases list disclosing proposed HC judges’ ties to sitting & former judges

Last month, ThePrint reported that 1 in every 3 of India’s 687 sitting permanent high court judges is either related to a sitting or former judge, or comes from a family of lawyers.

Supreme Court | File Photo | ThePrint

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has released, for the first time, a list of all the candidates proposed to be elevated as high court judges since November 2022, mentioning whether the candidate is related to any sitting or retired judge of a high court or the Supreme Court.

Last month, an investigation by ThePrint found that at least 30 percent of sitting Supreme Court judges are related to former judges, and another 30 percent have parents or grandparents who have been lawyers. It also found that, of the total 687 permanent judges of the 25 high courts in India, one in every three is related to a sitting or former judge, or comes from a family of lawyers.

The Supreme Court has now released a list of 221 candidates approved by the Supreme Court collegium for appointments as high court judges between 9 November 2022 to 5 May 2025.

Of these, 14 candidates are related to sitting or former judges of the Supreme Court or the high courts. It clarifies that a candidate is treated to be related to a former or sitting judge  is or was their father, mother, father-in-law, mother-in-law, sister, brother, sister-in-law, or brother-in-law.

The list also provides a breakdown of candidates belonging to Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST), or Other Backward Classes (OBC) categories. Of the 221 candidates, 8 belong to the SC category, 7 to ST category, 32 to OBC category, 7 to most backward classes/backward classes category, and 31 to minorities.

Only 34 out of the 221 candidates were women.

A press release issued by the Supreme Court on Monday said that the court has also placed the complete process of appointments to the High Courts and Supreme Court on its website “for knowledge and awareness of the public”. This, it said, included the role assigned to the High Court Collegium, the role and inputs received from state governments, Government of India, and consideration by the Supreme Court Collegium.

(Edited by Sanya Mathur)