Gujarat High Court

The Gujarat High Court is the High Court of the state of Gujarat. It was established on 1 May 1960 under the Bombay Re-organisation Act, 1960 after the state of Gujarat split from Bombay State.

Gujarat High Court
The Gujarat High Court building
23.0802°N 72.5244°E / 23.0802; 72.5244
Established	1 May 1960; 65 years ago (1960-05-01)
Jurisdiction	Gujarat
Location	Ahmedabad, Gujarat
Coordinates	23.0802°N 72.5244°E / 23.0802; 72.5244
Composition method	Presidential appointment with confirmation of Chief Justice of India and Governor of respective state.
Authorised by	Constitution of India
Appeals to	Supreme Court of India
Judge term length	Mandatory retirement by age of 62 years
Number of positions	52 (Permanent 39; Additional 13)
Website	gujarathighcourt.nic.in
Chief Justice
Currently	Sunita Agarwal
Since	23 July 2023

The seat of the court is Ahmedabad.

Establishment

This High Court was established on 1 May 1960 as a result of bifurcation of the former State of Bombay into two States of Maharashtra and Gujarat. The High Court started functioning near Akashwani, Navrangpura, Ahmedabad. The High Court had later shifted to the new building at Sarkhej - Gandhinagar Highway, Sola, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, from 16 January 1999.

Jurisdiction

The Gujarat High Court has jurisdiction over the entire state of Gujarat. It has jurisdiction on all district, administrative and other courts in Gujarat. This high court is a Court of record and empowered to punish anyone for contempt of court.

Powers

Unlike Union Judiciary, the state judiciary possesses wide powers which include powers such as Appellate, Second Appellate in some cases, Revisionary, Review etc. It also has power to issue various writs to courts and authorities under its jurisdiction. Intra-Court appeals, when permissible under Clause - 15 of Letters Patent, also lie within the same court from decision of a Single Judge to a Division Bench which comprises two Judges. It has power of superintendence on all courts under it under Article 227 of the Constitution of India. The High Courts are also empowered to hear Public Interest Litigations.

The Chief Justice

Main article: Chief Justice of Gujarat

The high court is headed by the Chief Justice on administrative side. They are appointed by President of India under warrant. However, the president is required to consult the Governor of Gujarat and the Chief Justice of India before making such appointment. The Governor of Gujarat administers the oath of office at the time of appointment. The present Chief Justice of the court is Justice Sunita Agarwal. Various benches are constituted depending upon the requirements of that High Court. These benches usually consist of division benches (two judges) and benches presided over by single judges. A roster is maintained by the High Court to assign the matters between various benches. Chief Justices in all the High Courts as also the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court are masters of the roster.

Judges

All judges of the high court are appointed by the President of India after recommendation by the Supreme Court Collegium. They hold constitutional post and there are ample safeguards provided in the constitution to ensure the independence of the judiciary. Any judge can resign by writing to the President of India. Terms of appointment of judges cannot be altered to their disadvantage after their appointment.

Qualifications

The following are qualifications to be judge of Gujarat High Court or any other High Court in India.

• The individual must be citizen of India
• The individual must have held a judicial office in India for at least ten years; or
• Been advocate in any high court or two or more courts in succession for at least 10 years.

Judges who served as Chief Justice of India

CJIs whose Parent High Court was Gujarat

#	Name of the Chief Justice	Image	Date of Appointment as Chief Justice	Date of Retirement	Tenure	Appointed By	Date of elevation to Supreme Court Nominated by	Total tenure in Supreme court (including as CJI)	Tenure in Gujarat High Court	Office at the time of elevation to Supreme Court	Remarks
1	Prafullachandra Natwarlal Bhagwati		12 July 1985	20 December 1986	1 year, 161 days	Zail Singh	17 July 1973 Ajit Nath Ray	13 years, 156 days	21 July 1960 – 15 September 1967 (7 years, 56 days)	5th Chief Justice of Gujarat High Court	17th Chief Justice of India
2	Aziz Mushabber Ahmadi		25 October 1994	24 March 1997	2 years, 150 days	Shankar Dayal Sharma	14 December 1988 Adarsh Sein Anand	8 years, 100 days	2 September 1976 – 13 December 1988 (12 years, 102 days)	Judge of Gujarat High Court	26th Chief Justice of India

CJIs whose Parent High Court was not Gujarat but they served in Gujarat High Court

#	Name of the Chief Justice	Image	Date of Appointment as Chief Justice	Date of Retirement	Tenure	Appointed By	Date of elevation to Supreme Court Nominated by	Total tenure in Supreme court (including as CJI)	Tenure in Gujarat High Court	Office at the time of elevation to Supreme Court	Date of initial appointment as Judge Parent High Court	Remarks
1	Konakuppakatil Gopinathan Balakrishnan		14 January 2007	11 May 2010	3 years, 117 days	A. P. J. Abdul Kalam	8 June 2000 Adarsh Sein Anand	9 years, 337 days	24 November 1997 – 15 July 1998 (233 days)	29th Chief Justice of Madras High Court	26 September 1985 Kerala	37th Chief Justice of India

Live Streaming

The High Court of Gujarat was pioneer in the country to live stream its proceedings. After successful implementation of live proceedings of its benches, the High Court also began live streaming of proceedings of the Principal District Courts across the state from February, 2023.

The Bench

The present strength of Gujarat High court is 38 against sanctioned strength of 52 posts which includes 39 permanent posts and 13 additional posts.^[1][2]

Following is the list of the Hon'ble Judges who currently preside over various benches of this High Court in the order of seniority. ^[3]

1. Hon'ble the Chief Justice Ms. Justice Sunita Agarwal
2. Hon'ble Mr. Justice A Y Kogje
3. Hon'ble Mr. Justice A S Supehia
4. Hon'ble Mr. Justice Umesh A Trivedi
5. Hon'ble Mr. Justice Bhargav D Karia
6. Hon'ble Ms. Justice Sangeeta K Vishen
7. Hon'ble Mr. Justice C. Manavendranath Roy
8. Hon'ble Mr. Justice Ilesh J Vora
9. Hon'ble Ms. Justice Gita Gopi
10. Hon'ble Ms. Justice Vabhavi D Nanavati
11. Hon'ble Mr. Justice Nirzar S Desai
12. Hon'ble Mr. Justice Nikhil S Kariel
13. Hon'ble Ms. Justice Mauna M Bhatt
14. Hon'ble Mr. Justice Samir J Dave
15. Hon'ble Mr. Justice Hemant M Prachchhak
16. Hon'ble Mr. Justice Sandeep N Bhatt
17. Hon'ble Mr. Justice Aniruddha P Mayee
18. Hon'ble Mr. Justice Niral Mehta
19. Hon'ble Ms. Justice Nisha M Thakore
20. Hon'ble Ms. Justice S V Pinto
21. Hon'ble Mr. Justice Hasmukh D Suthar
22. Hon'ble Mr. Justice J C Doshi
23. Hon'ble Mr. Justice M R Mengdey
24. Hon'ble Mr. Justice Dviyesh A Joshi
25. Hon'ble Mr. Justice Devan M Desai
26. Hon'ble Ms. Justice Moxa K Thakkar
27. Hon'ble Mr. Justice Vimal K Vyas
28. Hon'ble Mr. Justice Pranav S Trivedi
29. Hon'ble Mr. Justice Sanjeev J Thaker
30. Hon'ble Mr. Justice D N Ray
31. Hon'ble Mr. Justice Maulik J Shelat
32. Hon'ble Mr. Justice L S Pirzada
33. Hon'ble Mr. Justice R T Vachhani
34. Hon'ble Mr. Justice J L Odedra
35. Hon'ble Mr. Justice Pranav M Raval
36. Hon'ble Mr. Justice Mool Chand Tyagi
37. Hon'ble Mr. Justice D M Vyas
38. Hon'ble Mr. Justice Utkarsh T Desai

See also: List of sitting judges of High Courts of India

Former Chief Justices

#[4]	Chief Justice	Tenure
		Start	End
1	Sunderlal Trikamlal Desai	1 May 1960	25 January 1961
2	Kantilal Thakoredas Desai	26 January 1961	22 May 1963
3	Jaishanker Manilal Shelat	31 May 1963	24 February 1966
4	Nomanbhai Mahmedbhai Miabhoy	21 February 1966	15 September 1967
5	P. N. Bhagwati	16 September 1967	16 July 1973
6	Bipinchandra Jivanlal Diwan	17 July 1973	1 July 1976
7	Seshareddi Obul Reddi	7 July 1976	18 August 1977
(6)	Bipinchandra Jivanlal Diwan	28 August 1977	20 August 1981
8	Manharlal Pranlal Thakkar	20 August 1981	15 March 1983
9	Padmanabham Subramanian Poti	28 September 1983	1 February 1985
10	Puliyangudi Ramaiyapillai Gokulakrishnan	21 March 1985	12 August 1990
11	Ganendra Narayan Ray	2 December 1990	7 October 1991
12	Sundaram Nainar Sundaram	15 June 1992	13 December 1993
13	Bhupinder Nath Kirpal	14 December 1993	11 September 1995
14	Gurudas Datta Kamat	1 July 1996	4 January 1997
15	Kumaran Sreedharan	20 October 1997	3 June 1998
16	Konakuppakattil Gopinathan Balakrishnan	16 July 1998	7 September 1999
17	D M Dharmadhikari	25 January 2000	4 March 2002
18	Daya Saran Sinha	17 March 2002	18 March 2003
19	Bhawani Singh	25 August 2003	27 March 2006
20	Y. R. Meena	3 February 2007	30 June 2008
21	K S Panicker Radhakrishnan	4 September 2008	16 November 2009
22	S J Mukhopadhaya	9 December 2009	13 September 2011
23	Bhaskar Bhattacharya	21 July 2012	28 September 2014
24	R. Subhash Reddy	12 February 2016	01 November 2018
25	Vikram Nath	10 September 2019	30 August 2021
26	Aravind Kumar	13 October 2021	12 February 2023
27	Sonia Giridhar Gokani	13 February 2023	25 February 2023

See also

• High Courts of India