Nagpur: The Supreme Court Collegium on Tuesday recommended names of four Nagpur lawyers for elevation as judges of the Bombay High Court. They will be inducted as additional judges of the Bombay HC after the Central Government clears their appointments and issues a notification in this regard.
The four Nagpur lawyers are among 14 lawyers from Maharashtra recommended for elevation as judges of the Bombay High Court. The selected advocates are: Mehroz Ashrafkhan Pathan; Raj Wakode, Deputy Solicitor General of India Nandesh Deshpande and Rajnish Vyas. These four were among the 14 advocates from the Bombay High Court who were invited for an interaction with the collegium on the same day.
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18 Aug 2025
President of the High Court Bar Association, Advocate Atul Pande congratulated the four lawyers. He said their selection highlights the strong contribution of Nagpur’s legal community to the judiciary.
The SC Collegium led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Bhushan R Gavai recommended the names through two resolutions. The names of the lawyers to recommendation for elevation include Siddheshwar Sundarrao Thombre, Mehroz Ashraf Khan Pathan, Ranjitsinha Raja Bhonsale, Sandesh Dadasaheb Patil, Shreeram Vinayak Shirsat, Hiten Shamrao Venegavkar, Rajnish Ratnakar Vyas and Raj Damodar Wakode.
The other set of recommendations include names of advocates Nandesh Shankarrao Deshpande, Amit Satyavan Jamsandekar, Ashish Sahadev Chavan, Vaishali Nimbajirao Patil-Jadhav, Abasaheb Dharmaji Shinde, and Farhan Parvez Dubash.
A few of the lawyers recommended to be elevated as the judges of Bombay HC include Deputy Solicitor General Nandesh Deshpande, Chief Public Prosecutor Hiten Venegavkar along with advocates Sandesh Patil, Shreeram Shirsat, Ashish Chavan have been representing the Central and State governments and their agencies for last few years.
Besides the principal seat in Mumbai, the Bombay HC at present has benches at Nagpur, Aurangabad (in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar city), Goa (at Panaji) along with recent addition of circuit bench at Kolhapur.
On Tuesday, Chief Justice Alok Aradhe of Bombay HC administered oath to lawyers Ajit Bhagwanrao Kadethankar, Sushil Manohar Ghodeswar and Aarti Arun Sathe as Additional Judges of the Bombay High Court.
With these three additions, the Bombay HC presently has a total 69 judges including 50 permanent and 19 additional judges. The sanctioned strength of the Bombay HC, which is the second largest in the country after the Allahabad High Court, is 94.
