BPSC 70th CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 48 of 143

Correct — B, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court. The Supreme Court's own record of Justice N. Kotiswar Singh's career settles this precisely. Born at Imphal, he graduated from Kirori Mal College, Delhi University, took his law degree at the Campus Law Centre in 1986, served as Advocate General of Manipur from 3 November 2007, and was designated a Senior Advocate by the Gauhati High Court in 2008. He was sworn in as an Additional Judge of the Gauhati High Court on 17 October 2011 and confirmed on 7 November 2012, moved to the newly created Manipur High Court with effect from 23 March 2013, returned to the Gauhati High Court on 11 October 2018, and was elevated as Chief Justice of the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh on 15 February 2023. He was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of India on 18 July 2024 — reported at the time as the first judge from Manipur to reach the Court. So the post he held immediately before elevation was Chief Justice of the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, which is option (b). The reason option (c) is so tempting is that he genuinely did head the Gauhati High Court, three separate times, but only in an officiating capacity — from 21 September 2020 to 9 January 2021, from 9 May 2022 to 22 June 2022, and from 12 January 2023 until his elevation to Jammu and Kashmir. Performing the duties of the office of Chief Justice is not the same as being appointed Chief Justice, and this stem asks for the substantive post.

• (a)Madras High Court — There is a real reason this option is here, and it is worth knowing. Justice R. Mahadevan took oath as a judge of the Supreme Court on the very same day, 18 July 2024, and he had been the acting Chief Justice of the Madras High Court since 24 May 2024. Anyone who has half-remembered that pair of appointments can attach the wrong court to the wrong judge.
• (c)Gauhati High Court — The strongest distractor, and true in a weaker sense. Justice Kotiswar Singh began his judicial career at the Gauhati High Court in 2011 and performed the duties of its Chief Justice on three occasions between 2020 and 2023 — but as an officiating head, never as the appointed Chief Justice. His substantive Chief Justiceship was at Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
• (d)Bombay High Court — A pure decoy with no link to his career, which ran through the north-east and then Srinagar and Jammu. It is on the list because Bombay is one of the three chartered High Courts and the name comes readily to mind on any judiciary question.

Article 214 of the Constitution provides a High Court for each State, but Article 231 lets Parliament establish one common High Court for two or more States or Union Territories, which is why the map of High Courts does not simply mirror the map of States. The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir illustrates the point: after the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 split the State into the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and of Ladakh, it became the common High Court for both and was subsequently renamed the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. Judges of a High Court are appointed by the President under Article 217, and of the Supreme Court under Article 124, in both cases on recommendations made through the collegium — the Chief Justice of India with the four seniormost judges of the Supreme Court for elevations to that Court — a system that grew out of the Second and Third Judges cases of 1993 and 1998 rather than from any statute. The Supreme Court's sanctioned strength is 34, the Chief Justice of India plus 33 other judges.

Two words in the stem do all the work: 'Chief Justice' and 'before his appointment'. Together they ask for the substantive office held immediately prior to elevation, and that single reading disposes of the Gauhati option even for a candidate who knows that Justice Kotiswar Singh sat there for years and ran the court more than once. Indian High Courts are frequently headed for months at a time by an acting or officiating Chief Justice — the seniormost puisne judge steps up when the post falls vacant — and current-affairs questions exploit the gap between officiating and appointed relentlessly. The second habit worth forming is to track elevations in batches. Judges usually reach the Supreme Court in groups sworn in on one day, and remembering the group rather than the individual is what protects you from swapping two names, which is exactly the error option (a) is built to catch. Finally, note that a Chief Justice of a High Court is almost never from that court: the convention is that the Chief Justice of a High Court comes from outside the State, which is why a Manipur-born judge of the Gauhati High Court was appointed to head the court at Srinagar and Jammu.

• Justice N. Kotiswar Singh was appointed Chief Justice of the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh on 15 February 2023 and elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court of India on 18 July 2024
• He was born at Imphal, was Advocate General of Manipur from 3 November 2007, became an Additional Judge of the Gauhati High Court on 17 October 2011, moved to the Manipur High Court on its creation with effect from 23 March 2013, and returned to Gauhati on 11 October 2018
• He performed the duties of Chief Justice of the Gauhati High Court three times — 21 September 2020 to 9 January 2021, 9 May 2022 to 22 June 2022, and 12 January 2023 until his elevation — always in an officiating capacity
• Justice R. Mahadevan, who took oath as a Supreme Court judge on the same day, 18 July 2024, had been acting Chief Justice of the Madras High Court from 24 May 2024
• The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir became the common High Court for the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and of Ladakh after the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, and was subsequently renamed accordingly; Article 231 permits such a common High Court

• Treating an acting or officiating Chief Justice as the Chief Justice; the stem asks for the appointed post
• Swapping the courts of two judges elevated on the same day, which is precisely what the Madras option is designed to catch
• Assuming that the High Court a judge served in longest is the High Court he headed

BPSC turns judicial appointments into single-fact current-affairs questions — which High Court, which date, which post immediately before — and offers other real High Courts from the same news cycle as distractors, so read the appointment notices rather than a summary list of names. UPSC ignores individual judges almost entirely and tests the framework instead: which article provides for a High Court in each State, how many High Courts serve more than one State, and who has the power to increase the number of Supreme Court judges.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which Article of the Constitution permits the establishment of a common High Court for two or more States or Union Territories ?

  • (a)Article 214
  • (b)Article 217
  • (c)Article 231
  • (d)Article 226

  Answer(c) Article 231 — Article 214 provides a High Court for each State, and Article 231 is the exception that allows one common High Court for two or more States or Union Territories.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir became the common High Court for two Union Territories as a consequence of which enactment ?

  • (a)The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019
  • (b)The North-Eastern Areas (Reorganisation) Act, 1971
  • (c)The States Reorganisation Act, 1956
  • (d)The Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014

  Answer(a) The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 — it split the State into the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and of Ladakh, which now share one High Court.