Meghalaya high court

New chief justices (CJ) were appointed at the Meghalaya, Karnataka and Orissa high courts by Presidential order, reported the Press Information Bureau.

Allahabad HC judge Dinesh Maheshwari will assume the CJ’s office at Meghalaya HC, Karnataka HC judge Subhro Kamal Mukherjee will at Karnataka HC and Karnataka HC judge Vineet Saran will be the CJ at Orissa HC

Tea cuffs: "One might take tea in a variety of ways, not all of them always elegant or delicate, some of them perhaps even noisy. But we know of no way to drink tea 'suspiciously',” observed a Bombay HC bench while chastising the police for arresting a man for suspicious conduct u/s 151 after they thought he was drinking tea ‘suspiciously’ [PTI/Judgment]

Meghalaya CJI PC Pant: Justice Prafulla Chandra Pant has been transferred from the Uttarakhand HC and has been appointed as the first Chief Justice of the newly established Meghalaya HC [PTI]

Dec 16 rape referred: The Saket fast track court that sentenced the four December 16 gang rape convicts to death has now referred their case to the Delhi high court according to the procedure for confirmation of the sentence [Daily Bhaskar]

Constititonal CJI in JAC: The Chief Justice of India will get constitutional status as the head of the proposed Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) which will appoint judges to the higher judiciary, reportedly after continued criticism that the law establishing JAC does not safeguard the CJI’s position [Express]

The Madras high court, the Jharkhand high court, the Delhi high court and the Meghalaya high court will soon have new chief justices respectively with Madras HC acting chief justice RK Agrawal, Madras HC seniormost judge R Banumathi, Andhra Pradesh HC acting chief justice NV Ramana and seniormost Uttarakhand HC judge PC Pant’s names cleared  by the collegium, reported the Hindu.

It is the first time an Andhra Pradesh or Uttarakhand high court judge has become chief in any high court

“Justice Agrawal (60) became a permanent judge of the Allahabad High Court and he became acting Chief Justice of the Madras High Court on February 7 this year. A direct recruit, Justice Banumathi (58) entered the Tamil Nadu Higher Judicial Service in 1988 as district judge. She has worked as district and sessions judge in Coimbatore and Vellore. Justice Ramana (56), who hails from an agricultural family at Ponnavaram in Krishna district, has functioned as additional standing counsel for the Central government.”