High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh

The High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh^[2][3] is the common high court for union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. It was established as the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir on 26 March 1928 by the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir. The seat of the court shifts between the summer capital Srinagar and winter capital Jammu. The court has a sanctioned judge strength of 17, 13 of whom are permanent judges, and 4 are additional judges.^[4][5] Since 18 July 2024, the acting chief justice of the court is Tashi Rabstan.^[6]

High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh
Logo of High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh
Established	26 March 1928; 97 years ago (1928-03-26)[1]
Jurisdiction	Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh
Location	Srinagar Wing (Summer) and Jammu Wing (Winter)
Composition method	Presidential 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 at the age of 62
Number of positions	25 (19 Permanent Judges and 6 Additional Judges)
Website	www.jkhighcourt.nic.in
Chief Justice
Currently	Arun Palli
Since	16 April 2025

History

The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir was established by Order No. 1, issued by Maharaja Hari Singh on 26 March 1928. The Maharaja appointed Lala Kanwar Sain as the first chief justice, and Lala Bodh Raj Sawhney and Khan Sahib Aga Syed Hussain as puisne judges.^[7] The High Court sat at both the winter capital of Jammu, and the summer capital of Srinagar. The Maharaja conferred letters patent on the High Court on 10 September 1943.

Puisne judge Khan Sahib Aga Syed Hussain^[8] was the first Muslim judge of the High Court. He retired as Home and Judicial Minister of Jammu and Kashmir during the Maharaja Rule.^[9]

In August 2018, the High Court got its first and second woman judges with Justice Sindhu Sharma, who was appointed a judge, and Justice Gita Mittal, who was appointed the chief justice.^{[citation needed]}

In August 2019, a Reorganisation Bill was passed by both houses of the Indian Parliament. This bill reorganised the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories—Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh—as of 31 October 2019. After this reorganisation, the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir continued serving as the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh for both union territories.

Tashi Rabstan was appointed as the Acting Chief Justice of the High Court on 8 December 2022.^[10]

List of chief justices

List of former chief justices

#	Chief Justice	Term
1	Kanwar Sain	27 April 1928–16 February 1931
2	Birjor Dalal	16 February 1931–24 November 1936
3	Abdul Qayoom	24 November 1936–20 July 1940
4	Rachpal Singh	13 August 1940–6 March 1942
5	Ganga Nath	24 June 1942–23 October 1945
6	S.K. Ghose	29 March 1946–29 March 1948
7	Janki Nath Wazir	30 March 1948–2 December 1967
8	Syed Murtaza Fazl Ali	3 December 1967–1 April 1975
9	Raja Jaswant Singh	2 April 1975–23 January 1976
10	M.R.A. Ansari	23 January 1976–8 November 1977
11	Mian Jalal-ud-Din	15 February 1978–22 February 1980
12	Mufti Baha-ud-Din	7 March 1983–23 August 1983
13	Vazhakkulangarayil Khalid	24 August 1983–24 June 1984
14	Adarsh Sein Anand	11 May 1985–23 October 1989
15	S.S. Kang	24 October 1989–14 May 1993
16	S.C. Mathur	10 October 1993–17 March 1994
17	S. Sagir Ahmed	18 March 1994–22 September 1994
18	M. Ramakrishna	10 October 1994–15 June 1997
19	Bhawani Singh	16 June 1997–21 February 2000
20	B.P. Saraf	21 February 2000–22 August 2001
21	H.K. Sema	12 September 2001–8 April 2002
22	B.C. Patel	16 May 2002–4 March 2003
23	S.N. Jha	4 February 2004–11 October 2005
24	B.A. Khan	25 January 2007–31 March 2007
25	K.S. Radhakrishnan	7 January 2008–28 August 2008
26	Manmohan Sarin	4 September 2008–19 October 2008
27	Barin Ghosh	3 January 2009–13 April 2010
28	Dr. Aftab Hussain Saikia	13 April 2010–6 April 2011
29	F. M. Ibrahim Kalifulla	24 February 2011–2 April 2012
Acting	Virender Singh	02 April 2012–07 June 2012
30	M. M. Kumar	8 June 2012 – 4 January 2015
31	N. Paul Vasanthakumar	2 February 2015 – 14 March 2017
Acting	Ramalingam Sudhakar	15 March 2017 – 31 March 2017
32	Badar Durrez Ahmed	1 April 2017 – 15 March 2018
Acting	Ramalingam Sudhakar	16 March 2018 – 11 May 2018
Acting	Alok Aradhe	11 May 2018 – 11 August 2018
33	Gita Mittal	11 August 2018 – 8 December 2020
Acting	Rajesh Bindal	9 December 2020 – 3 January 2021
34	Pankaj Mithal	4 January 2021 – 12 October 2022
35	Ali Mohammad Magrey	13 October 2022 – 7 December 2022
Acting	Tashi Rabstan	8 December 2022 - 14 February 2023
36	N. Kotiswar Singh	15 February 2023 - 17 July 2024
Acting	Tashi Rabstan	18 July 2024 - 26 September 2024
37	Tashi Rabstan	27 September 2024 - 9 April 2025
Acting	Sanjeev Kumar	10 April 2025 - 15 April 2025
38	Arun Palli	16 April 2025 - Incumbent

Judges who served as Chief Justice of India

#	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 as judge of Supreme court by	Total tenure in Supreme court (including as CJI)	Date of Initial Appointment as Judge	Post held at the time of elevation to Supreme Court	Remarks
1	Adarsh Sein Anand		10 October 1998	31 October 2001	3 years, 21 days	K. R. Narayanan	18 November 1991	Ranganath Misra	9 years, 347 days	26 May 1975	24th Chief Justice of Madras High Court	29th Chief Justice of India
2	Tirath Singh Thakur		3 December 2015	3 January 2017	1 year, 31 days	Pranab Mukherjee	17 November 2009	K. G. Balakrishnan	7 years, 47 days	16 February 1994	28th Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court	43rd Chief Justice of India

Notable people

• Hakim Imtiyaz Hussain (born 1949), former Jammu and Kashmir High Court judge

Jammu and Kashmir State Judicial Academy

In 2001, the High Court established its regular Judicial Academy via order No. 342, dated 26 July. Since then, Jammu and Kashmir State Judicial Academy functions regularly and holds training programmes.^[11] Jammu and Kashmir State Judicial Academy has its own infrastructure in Jammu (in the premises of the High Court) and in Srinagar (Mominabad).

The administrative machinery of High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh moves to Srinagar, its summer capital, in April and Jammu, its winter capital, in November every year. In view of this tradition, Jammu and Kashmir State Judicial Academy also functions likewise from Jammu and Srinagar. It has infrastructures both in Jammu and Srinagar.^[12][13]