123 Kolkata: The Centre on Saturday cleared the appointment of three advocates — Smita Das De, Reetobroto Kumar Mitra, and Om Narayan Rai — as additional judges to the Calcutta High Court. The three appointees are among five names that were recommended for judgeship by the Supreme Court collegium on Feb 28. The Centre is yet to clear the names of Md Talay Masood Siddiqui and Krishnaraj Thaker. Union law and justice minister Arjun Ram Meghwal took to X on Saturday to announce the appointments.
The Calcutta High Court now has 44 judges — 33 permanent judges and 11 additional judges. However, the SC collegium has already nominated Calcutta HC Judge Joymalya Bagchi for appointment as an SC judge and also recommended that Justice Harish Tandon be made the Chief Justice of Odisha High Court. In Sept 2025, Chief Justice T S Sivagnanam is set to complete his term, and in Nov 2025, Justice Bibhas Ranjan De is also set to retire from Calcutta High Court.
The appointment of Das De as a judge also ensures that there will be eight lady judges in the Cal HC. Before these appointments, the Calcutta High Court had the second-highest vacancy of judges among all HCs in India. The Allahabad High Court has the highest. The Calcutta High Court vacancy is the same as the Bombay High Court, but the latter is a much bigger court with 94 sanctioned judges.
The Calcutta HC had a sanctioned strength of 72 judges. Twenty-eight positions of judges are now vacant. The Allahabad HC now has 87 judges with 73 vacancies; the Bombay High Court has 66 judges with 28 vacancies. The Calcutta High Court has two circuit benches in Port Blair and Jalpaiguri.
The Appellate side bench in Kolkata is now hearing 1.7 lakh cases. Among them, 1.5 lakh are civil disputes. The Original side bench in Kolkata is now hearing 16,961 cases. The Jalpaiguri circuit bench is now hearing 3,328 cases, while the Port Blair bench is now hearing 506 cases.
Kolkata: The Centre on Saturday cleared the appointment of three advocates — Smita Das De, Reetobroto Kumar Mitra, and Om Narayan Rai — as additional judges to the Calcutta High Court. The three appointees are among five names that were recommended for judgeship by the Supreme Court collegium on Feb 28. The Centre is yet to clear the names of Md Talay Masood Siddiqui and Krishnaraj Thaker. Union law and justice minister Arjun Ram Meghwal took to X on Saturday to announce the appointments.
The Calcutta High Court now has 44 judges — 33 permanent judges and 11 additional judges. However, the SC collegium has already nominated Calcutta HC Judge Joymalya Bagchi for appointment as an SC judge and also recommended that Justice Harish Tandon be made the Chief Justice of Odisha High Court. In Sept 2025, Chief Justice T S Sivagnanam is set to complete his term, and in Nov 2025, Justice Bibhas Ranjan De is also set to retire from Calcutta High Court.
The appointment of Das De as a judge also ensures that there will be eight lady judges in the Cal HC. Before these appointments, the Calcutta High Court had the second-highest vacancy of judges among all HCs in India. The Allahabad High Court has the highest. The Calcutta High Court vacancy is the same as the Bombay High Court, but the latter is a much bigger court with 94 sanctioned judges.
The Calcutta HC had a sanctioned strength of 72 judges. Twenty-eight positions of judges are now vacant. The Allahabad HC now has 87 judges with 73 vacancies; the Bombay High Court has 66 judges with 28 vacancies. The Calcutta High Court has two circuit benches in Port Blair and Jalpaiguri.
The Appellate side bench in Kolkata is now hearing 1.7 lakh cases. Among them, 1.5 lakh are civil disputes. The Original side bench in Kolkata is now hearing 16,961 cases. The Jalpaiguri circuit bench is now hearing 3,328 cases, while the Port Blair bench is now hearing 506 cases.
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