Few judicial officers make it to High Courts despite training and decades of experience

The elevation of seven district judges to the Delhi High Court last week has once again drawn attention to the narrow path from the subordinate judiciary to the higher Bench, where judicial officers account for only a fraction of the judges despite spending decades deciding cases at the trial-court level.

Chief Justice D.K. Upadhyaya administered the oath of office to Justices Nivedita Anil Sharma, Nisha Sahay Saxena, Sanjay Sharma, Bharat Parashar, Aditi Choudhary, Dinesh Bhatt, and Arun Bhardwaj. With these appointments, the Delhi High Court’s working strength rose to 50 against a sanctioned strength of 60, with 19 judges having climbed the ranks from the subordinate courts.