The Supreme Court Collegium on Thursday recommended the elevation of Justice Joymalya Bagchi of the Calcutta High Court to the Supreme Court..As per the resolution, Justice Bagchi stands at Sl. No. 11 in the combined all-India seniority of High Court judges, including Chief Justices.Below is the list of 10 judges who feature higher in that list than Justice Bagchi..The list includes eight sitting Chief Justices and two puisne judges.Interestingly, four judges have the Calcutta High Court as their parent High Court - including the senior-most judge Justice Biswanath Somadder - while three are from the Madhya Pradesh High Court. One each are from the High Courts of Delhi, Chhattisgarh and Madras.Thus, at least four judges from Justice Bagchi's parent High Court are currently senior to him - Justices Somadder, Indra Prasanna Mukerji, Harish Tandon and Soumen Sen. Justices Somadder and Mukerji are serving as Chief Justices of the Sikkim High Court and the Meghalaya High Court, respectively..The resolution passed by the Supreme Court Collegium states that there is inadequate representation from the Calcutta High Court, and acknowledges that Justice Bagchi is eleventh on the seniority list."The Collegium has also taken into consideration the fact that, at present, the Bench of the Supreme Court is represented by only one Judge from the High Court at Calcutta. Mr. Justice Joymalya Bagchi stands at Sl. No. 11 in the combined all-India seniority of High Court Judges, including Chief Justices.As on date, there is only one judge at the Supreme Court who hails from the Calcutta High Court - Justice Dipankar Datta..This is not the first time seniority has given way to considerations of regional representation in the Supreme Court. While recommending the elevation of Justice Bagchi, the Collegium stated in its resolution,"After carefully evaluating merit, integrity and competence and also accommodating a plurality of considerations, the Collegium has recommended appointment of Mr. Justice Joymalya Bagchi, presently a Judge of the High Court at Calcutta, as a Judge of the Supreme Court of India.".For further context, the current State-wise representation of judges in the Supreme Court is as follows:Calcutta High Court - Justice Dipankar Datta;Delhi High Court - Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna, Justice Manmohan;Bombay High Court - Justice BR Gavai, Justice Abhay S Oka, Justice PB Varale;Punjab & Haryana High Court - Justice Surya Kant, Justice Rajesh Bindal, Justice Augustine George Masih;Allahabad High Court - Justice Vikram Nath, Justice Pankaj Mithal, Justice Manoj Misra;Madhya Pradesh High Court - Justice JK Maheshwari, Justice Satish Chandra Sharma;Karnataka High Court - Justice BV Nagarathna, Justice Aravind Kumar;Madras High Court - Justice MM Sundresh, Justice R Mahadevan;Gujarat High Court - Justice Bela M Trivedi, Justice JB Pardiwala;Uttarakhand High Court - Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia;Himachal Pradesh High Court - Justice Sanjay Karol;Telangana High Court - Justice PV Sanjay Kumar;Andhra Pradesh High Court - Justice SV Bhatti;Patna High Court - Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah;Chhattisgarh High Court - Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra;Gauhati High Court - Justice Ujjal Bhuyan, Manipur High Court - Justice N Kotiswar Singh;Rajasthan High Court - Justice Sandeep Mehta;Kerala High Court - Justice K Vinod Chandran.
