Senior advocate P S Narasimha might become the sixth lawyer who could be directly elevated from the Bar to the apex court bench in the 71-year-old history of the Supreme Court, on the recommendation of the Collegium.
The Supreme Court in a statement on Wednesday said that the collegium headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) NV Ramana has recommended nine names for appointment as judges in the apex court to the Centre, the names include three women high court judges along with the Senior advocate and former Additional Solicitor General, for appointment as judges in the Supreme Court, PTI informed.
After 1993, five lawyers N Santosh Hegde, R F Nariman, U U Lalit, L N Rao and Indu Malhotra — became apex court judges after being directly elevated from the bar to the top court bench. Justices Lalit and Rao are sitting apex court judges. Justice Lalit is next in line to become the CJI after the retirement of Justice Ramana on August 26 next year as reported by The Economic times
Justice S M Sikri, who became the 13th CJI in January 1971, was the first lawyer to be elevated directly to the apex court bench in March 1964.
P.S. Narasimha was born in May 1963, he is the son of illustrious Justice Sri P Kodandaramayya who played a very important role in the publication of major Sanskrit texts with commentaries in Telugu language through Arsha Vignana Trust and is himself an author on Ramayana and Mahabharata.
He was appointed as an Additional Solicitor General in 2014 and resigned from the post in 2018. As a senior advocate, he had appeared in several important matters concerning the nation in the apex court which includes his legendary work in the historic Ayodhya case in which the top court had given cleared the way for the construction of a Ram Temple at the disputed site and directed the Centre to allot a five-acre plot to the Sunni Waqf Board for building a mosque.
He was also appointed as amicus curiae by the apex court in the case related to reforms in the cash-rich cricket board BCCI. Narasimha, after hearing them, would make the recommendations to the recently replenished Committee of Administrators (CoA), which is managing the BCCI. Under Narasimha’s guidance the BCCI steered itself and was brought back on a path. As a law officer, he had represented the Centre before the top court in the Italian Marines case.
Everyone, be it a veteran BCCI official, representatives of the Hindus or a club official from Pondicherry, were given one-on-one meetings by Narasimha the Negotiator. According to him what worked for him was his patient and sympathetic attitude.
The recommendations of the list by the Collegium will be sent to the Union law ministry that has the option of sending the recommendations back to the collegium for review, but if the collegium resubmits them, it has to approve the names and thus, Narasimha would become the sixth lawyer to be elevated to the bench directly from the bar since 1993.