Weekly Legal Updates Aug Week 1

1. New Supreme Court Judges Appointed :

The Ministry of Law and Justice issued the notification for the appointment of three new Supreme Court
Justices after the assent from The President of India.

The newly appointed judges are:

 Justice Indira Banerjee – Presently the Chief Justice of The Madras High Court
 Justice Vineet Saran – Presently the Chief Justice of The Orrissa High Court
 Justice K M Joseph – Presently the Chief Justice of The Uttarakhand High Court.

Justice Joseph’s name as a Supreme Court Judge was earlier denied by the central government after the
collegium recommended him to be elevated as a Supreme Judge. With this the number of judges in the
Supreme Court is at present 25 against the sanctioned strength of 31 judges (Including the Chief Justice of
India).

Justice Indira Banerjee is the 8th women judge of The Supreme Court of India. It is for the 1 st time that the
Supreme Court of India is having 3 sitting women judges at the same time.

2. New High Court Chief Justices Appointed :

Justice Geeta Mittal (Presently the Acting Chief Justice of Delhi High Court) – Chief Justice of Jammu and
Kashmir High Court.

Justice (Mrs.) Vijaya K Tahilramani – Chief Justice of Madras High Court.

Jusitce Rajendra Menon – Chief Justice of Delhi High Court

Justice Anirudha Bose – Chief Justice of Jharkhand High Court

Justice Hrishikesh Roy – Chief Justice of Kerela High Court

Justice M R Shah – Chief Justice of Patna High Court

Justice Kalpesh Satyendra - Chief Justice of Orrissa High Court

 Weekly Legal Updates Aug Week 1
With the appointment of Jusitce Geeta Mittal and Justice Sindhu Sharma to the High Court of Jammu and
Kashmir, they have become J&K High Court’s first woman Chief Justice and the first woman judge
respectively in the 90 years history of J&K High Court’s 90 years journey.

3. Guidelines to Designate Senior Advocates Notified by Supreme Court :

The Supreme Court of India on Monday the 6th of August notified the guidelines for the designation of senior
advocates. The guidelines has been named as “Supreme Court Guidelines to Regulate Conferment of
Designation of Senior Advocates, 2018”. There shall be a permanent committee for the same with the Chief
of India as its Chairperson, two senior most Supreme Court Judges, the Attorney General of India and a
member of the bar as to be nominated by the Chairperson along with other members. One of the basic
eligibility criterion has been fixed as minimum of 10 years as an advocate or 10 years of being a District
Judge.

These guidelines have been given in the case of Indira Jaisingh v. Union of India. Indira Jaisingh is a senior
advocate in the Supreme Court of India.

4. Rajasthan High Court has ruled that the female suffering from Premenstrual Stress Syndrome can
claim the defence of insanity.

5. Lok Sabha passes the National Sports University Bill:

The first National Sports University started functioning at Manipur in January 2018 was established through
an ordinance passed in May 2017. The university has been established with an aim of promoting and
institutionalising the study and research in the field of sports education.