Supreme Court Collegium Recommends New Chief Justices for Rajasthan, MP, Chhattisgarh and J&K-Ladakh High Courts
In an unusual move, the Collegium made two separate recommendations for Justice Agarwal, one to transfer him and another to appoint him Chief Justice of Rajasthan High Court, amid the row over Acting Chief Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma, even as it named new Chief Justices for the Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Courts.
Published on: 1 September 2026, 10:19 am
THE SUPREME COURT COLLEGIUM on Monday made recommendations to appoint Chief Justices at the High Courts of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.
The Collegium, which comprises Chief Justice of India (‘CJI’) Surya Kant and Justices Vikram Nath and B.V. Nagarathna, recommended that the senior-most judge of the Chhattisgarh High Court, Justice Sanjay K. Agarwal, be appointed as Chief Justice of the Rajasthan High Court.
Curiously, a different Collegium, which also includes two more judges, namely Justices M.M. Sundresh and P.S. Narasimha, also made a recommendation to transfer Justice Agarwal to the Rajasthan High Court.
Though the reason for the two different recommendations, namely, first to transfer Justice Agarwal to the Rajasthan High Court and also to appoint him as Chief Justice of the Rajasthan High Court, has not been disclosed, it is understood that for the transfer of a judge, the views of the concerned state government are not needed and thus it is an expeditious process, unlike the process to appoint a Chief Justice of a High Court, where views from the State Government are also ascertained before the proposal is finally given effect by the Union Government.
The recommendation to transfer Justice Agarwal has come in the backdrop of protests against the Acting Chief Justice of the Rajasthan High Court, Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma, after Supreme Court judge Justice Sandeep Mehta reportedly accused Justice Sharma, in a letter to the Chief Justice of India (CJI), of manipulating the listing of cases and threatening judicial officers.
The Acting Chief Justice of the Rajasthan High Court, Sanjeev Prakash Sharma, has decided not to hold court till September 5. He is slated to retire on September 25 this year.
Once Justice Agarwal’s transfer is notified, he will become the senior-most judge at the Rajasthan High Court and would function as Acting Chief Justice there till his appointment as regular Chief Justice of the Rajasthan High Court is given effect.
Justice Agarwal was appointed as an Additional Judge of the High Court of Chhattisgarh on September 16, 2013. He became a permanent judge on 8 March 2016. He is slated to retire as a High Court judge on July 15, 2027.
The Collegium has also recommended that the senior-most judge of the Gujarat High Court, Justice Alpesh Yeshvant Kogje, be appointed as Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court. The Madhya Pradesh High Court has been functioning without a regular Chief Justice since June 1, 2026, when the then incumbent Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva was elevated to the Supreme Court.
Justice Kogje was appointed as an additional judge of the High Court of Gujarat on April 6, 2016, and confirmed as a permanent judge on March 15, 2018. He is slated to retire on July 15, 2031, if not elevated to the Supreme Court.