New Chief Justices for Manipur, Meghalaya & Tripura high courts

Shillong/IMPHAL: Chief justices and judges of newly established high courts in Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura, were sworn in on Saturday. Earlier, the three states were under the jurisdiction of Gauhati High Court.

Justice T Meena Kumari, who became the first chief justice of matrilineal Meghalaya, was administered the oath of office by governor Ranjit Shekhar Mooshahary at the Raj Bhavan in Shillong. While justice Abhay Manohar Sapre was sworn in as first chief justice of Manipur high court by governor Gurbachan Jagat in Imphal, justice Deepak Gupta became the new chief justice of Tripura HC. Justice Gupta was administered the oath of office by outgoing governor of Tripura D Y Patil at the Raj Bhavan in Agartala. Chief Justice of India Altamas Kabir and Union law minister Ashwani Kumar will visit Imphal and Shillong on March 25 to formally inaugurate the Manipur and Meghalaya high courts. The Tripura HC will be inaugurated the next day. Soon after being sworn-in as chief justice of Meghalaya HC, justice Kumari administered oath to other two judges of the high court - justices S R Sen and TMK Singh. Similarly, justices U B Saha, S C Das and S Talapatra were sworn in as judges of Tripura HC by Tripura chief justice.

In Imphal, justice N Kotiswor Singh, a former judge of Gauhati HC, was sworn in as new judge of Manipur HC by chief justice Sapre. Two other judges of Manipur HC will be sworn in later.

While Manipur and Tripura will be four-judge high courts, the Meghalaya HC will have three judges. In her first interaction with the media, Kumari, who was earlier a judge in Patna HC, has put priority on having more fast-track courts in the state. While Tripura chief justice Gupta was earlier serving as a judge in Himachal Pradesh HC, the Manipur chief justice was a former judge of Chhattisgarh HC.

Earlier, all seven states of northeast were under the jurisdiction of Gauhati HC with the principal bench in Guwahati and six other states having outlying bench each. From now, the Gauhati HC will only cater to the Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram.

The Gauhati HC was initially known as High Court of Assam and established in 1948. With the formation of Nagaland in 1963, the HC was known as High Court of Assam and Nagaland. After the re-organization of northeast by the North Eastern Area (Re-organization) Act, 1971, its name was changed to Gauhati high court catering to five states of Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura and two Union Territories of Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh. With Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh becoming full fledged states in 1987, all seven states came under Gauhati HC.

As the jurisdiction of Gauhati HC is vast and the number of cases is increasing, there were demands in Manipur and Tripura for having separate high courts. The Union law ministry then decided to constitute separate high courts in Manipur, Tripura and Meghalaya.

The formation of the three high courts was delayed due to a strike by lawyers in Manipur who demanded seven judges for the new HC.