Questions in Justice Nagarathna’s dissent remain even as Justices Aradhe, Pancholi to be sworn in as Supreme Court judges on August 29

Questions raised by Justice B.V. Nagarathna in a dissent to the elevation of Justice Vipul Manubhai Pancholi to the Supreme Courtroom stay whilst Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai is scheduled to learn the oath of workplace to the choose and Justice Alok Aradhe on Friday (August 29, 2025).

The lone lady apex court docket choose’s questions in her dissent included the explanations behind the switch of Justice Pancholi from Gujarat to Patna in July 2023 and why a crew of senior attorneys had urgently sought a gathering with then Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud (now retired) within the presence of Justice M.R. Shah (retired), a then apex court docket choose whose guardian Excessive Courtroom was Gujarat and had served because the Chief Justice of Patna Excessive Courtroom, to plead for Justice Pancholi’s fast switch. 

In her dissent, Justice Nagarathna had requested the Collegium to name for the minutes of its assembly wherein Justice Pancholi’s switch to Patna was proposed.

The dissent had queried why Justice Vikram Nath, presently a Supreme Courtroom Collegium member and previously Gujarat Chief Justice, had summoned Justice Pancholi to reprimand him. It additionally seems that Justice Nath had expressed reservations, alongside Justice Nagarathna, when Chief Justice Gavai proposed the elevation of Justice Pancholi on Might 25.

The dissent highlighted that the opinions of Justices Shah, Nath and J.B. Pardiwala of the Supreme Courtroom and Justice Aravind Kumar, who was Chief Justice of Gujarat Excessive Courtroom then and presently an apex court docket choose, had been sought about Justice Pancholi’s switch to Patna Excessive Courtroom. They’d all agreed to the switch proposal.

Nonetheless, the opinion of Justice Pardiwala was not sought throughout Justice Pancholi’s elevation because the Patna Excessive Courtroom Chief Justice by a three-member Supreme Courtroom Collegium.

A supply near the event mentioned Justice Nagarathna’s dissent emphasised the necessity to have a “actually excessive” threshold in place whereas recommending judges to the Supreme Courtroom, particularly those that can be in line for future Chief Justiceship of India.

Statements have appeared within the public area linking Justice Nagarathna’s elevation to the apex court docket to her father and nineteenth Chief Justice of India E.S. Venkataramiah. Nonetheless, Justice Nagarathna was elevated to the Karnataka Excessive Courtroom Bench in February 2008, a decade after her father had died in September 1997. The choose’s elevation to the apex court docket got here almost 24 years after the previous CJI handed on.