Who among the following has NOT been the Chief Justice of Uttarakhand High Court?
- (a)Vikas Shridhari Sirpurkar
- (b)Jagdish Singh Khehar
- (c)Raghvendra Singh Chauhan
- (d)Pankaj Purohit
Correct — D, Pankaj Purohit.
The keyed answer is (d), Pankaj Purohit. The High Court of Uttarakhand maintains two separate rolls on its own website — a page of former Chief Justices and a page of sitting judges — and Pankaj Purohit belongs to the second.
He was appointed a Judge of the High Court of Uttarakhand on 27 April 2023 and took oath as a permanent Judge the following day.
He came to the Bench from the Bar: an LL.B. from Government P.G. College, Gopeshwar in 1991, practice at Gopeshwar and then at Allahabad, a return to Nainital after Uttarakhand was created, and a stint as Deputy Advocate General for the State between 2017 and 2019.
His name does not appear on the court's list of former Chief Justices. The other three names all do.
The idea worth carrying away is that 'is a judge of this High Court' and 'has headed this High Court' are two different claims, and a question of this shape is built precisely on the gap between them — a familiar-sounding name is not evidence of the office.
The way the office is filled reinforces the point:
by long-standing collegium practice the Chief Justice of a High Court is usually brought in from a different High Court rather than promoted from within the same court's own bench, so a judge elevated locally from the State's Bar is the natural name to plant as the intruder.
- (a)Vikas Shridhari Sirpurkar — He did hold the office, so he cannot be the answer to a 'has NOT been' stem.
The court's own roll of former Chief Justices carries V.S. Sirpurkar, who headed it in 2004-05, taking over from S.H. Kapadia and handing over to Cyriac Joseph; he later sat as a judge of the Supreme Court.
Note that the paper's spelling differs a little from the rendering you will usually see (Vikas Shridhar Sirpurkar) — the initials are what identify him, and an unfamiliar transliteration is not evidence that a name is the odd one out.
He is the right answer to a question asking who led the Nainital court between Kapadia and Cyriac Joseph.
- (b)Jagdish Singh Khehar — He is on the roll too — Chief Justice at Nainital in 2009-10, after which he went on to head the Karnataka High Court, then to the Supreme Court, and became Chief Justice of India in January 2017, holding that office until August 2017.
This is the most famous name in the set, which is exactly why it draws the eye of a candidate who has read past the 'NOT' in the stem.
He is the right answer to a question asking which former Chief Justice of the Uttarakhand High Court became Chief Justice of India in 2017 — and such a question has to carry that date, because S.H. Kapadia also moved from this court to the CJI's chair, in 2010.
- (c)Raghvendra Singh Chauhan — Also a former Chief Justice of this court, holding the office through 2021, between Ramesh Ranganathan and Vipin Sanghi on the court's list.
His is the least widely recognised of the three genuine names, so a candidate working from newspaper memory rather than the roll can mistake unfamiliarity for absence and mark this instead.
He is the right answer to a question asking who headed the Uttarakhand High Court in 2021.
Article 216 constitutes every High Court of a Chief Justice and such other judges as the President may appoint, and Article 217 governs how they are appointed
— by the President, after consultation with the Chief Justice of India, the Governor of the State, and, for a judge other than the Chief Justice, the Chief Justice of that High Court.
So the Chief Justice is a distinct office, not merely the senior-most judge in residence.
Two further provisions explain why a court's list of Chief Justices looks the way it does:
Article 222 moves a sitting judge or Chief Justice between High Courts, while a judge of one High Court is appointed Chief Justice of another under Article 217(1) — either way the office is normally filled from outside the State;
and Article 223 lets the President appoint an acting Chief Justice when the office is vacant or its holder is unable to act.
That is why a High Court's roll of substantive Chief Justices is a short list of largely outside names, while its bench at any moment includes judges elevated locally from the State's own Bar and subordinate judiciary.
The High Court of Uttarakhand at Nainital is one of the state institutions a UKPSC candidate is expected to know from the primary source rather than from headlines.
The court's website lists its former Chief Justices on one page and its sitting judges on another, and this question simply asks whether you have read the first list or only recognise names.
The succession itself is not a tidy chain — the office has fallen vacant between substantive appointments, and Article 223 covers those gaps with acting Chief Justices, so 'served as acting Chief Justice' and 'was Chief Justice' are not the same entry either.
- The High Court of Uttarakhand sits at Nainital and came into being in November 2000, when the State was carved out of Uttar Pradesh under the Uttar Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2000.
- The court's own 'Former Hon'ble Chief Justices' page names V.S. Sirpurkar, J.S. Khehar and Raghvendra Singh Chauhan; Pankaj Purohit appears instead on the sitting-judges side of the same website (checked September 2026).
- Pankaj Purohit was appointed a Judge of the High Court of Uttarakhand on 27 April 2023 and took oath as a permanent Judge on 28 April 2023; he was elevated from the Bar and had served as Deputy Advocate General for Uttarakhand from May 2017 until July 2019.
- Ashok A. Desai is described on the court's own page as its founder Chief Justice.
- Both S.H. Kapadia and J.S. Khehar headed this court before becoming Chief Justice of India — Kapadia from 2010 to 2012, Khehar from January to August 2017.
- Ritu Bahri, who took oath in February 2024, was the first woman to be Chief Justice of this court.
- Article 217(1) requires the President to consult the Chief Justice of India and the Governor of the State for every High Court judge, and additionally the Chief Justice of that High Court when the appointee is not the Chief Justice.
Three names come off the court's list of former Chief Justices; the fourth comes off its list of sitting judges. Both lists are published by the High Court of Uttarakhand itself.
- Reading the name as familiar and stopping there: Pankaj Purohit does sit on the Uttarakhand High Court, so his name genuinely belongs to that institution — just not to that office. Recognition tells you nothing about which of the two rolls a name is on.
- Skipping the 'NOT' and marking the biggest name. Khehar, a former Chief Justice of India, is the option a hurried candidate reaches for when the stem is read as 'who among the following HAS been'.
- Assuming that a Chief Justice must have risen through the same court, or must be from the State. In practice the office is normally filled from outside the State — a sitting judge or Chief Justice moved across under Article 222, or a judge of another High Court appointed Chief Justice here under Article 217(1) — so being a local Bar product is a reason to doubt the office, not to assume it.
- Treating 'served as acting Chief Justice' or 'was the senior-most judge' as equivalent to having been Chief Justice. Article 223 makes those different things.
This idea comes up as an odd-one-out over a roll of office-holders: three names lifted from an official list and a fourth that belongs to the same institution in a different capacity, so that the discrimination required is between two roles rather than between two institutions.
The same list can be worked from the other side — asking for the first holder, the founder, the first woman to hold the office, or the one who later reached a higher court
— which is why learning the roll in order, with the two or three names that carry a distinguishing fact, is more useful than memorising a single answer.
UKPSC_2024_PRE_GSI_Q1172024The same office, asked from the opposite side in the same paper: Q117 wants a single named holder — the first woman Chief Justice of the Uttarakhand High Court, Ritu Bahri, who took oath in February 2024 — while Q60 wants the one name that is not on the roll at all. A candidate who has actually read the court's list of former Chief Justices answers both; one who has only seen the recent headline answers Q117 and can still be caught by Q60, because the intruder there is a sitting judge of the same court rather than an outsider.
RPSC_2023_PRE_Prelims2023_Q282023Shares the exact distinction this question turns on — Article 217(1) prescribes a different consultation for 'a Judge other than the Chief Justice', so the Constitution itself separates the two roles that Q60 asks you to tell apart. What differs is the type of knowledge tested and the court: RPSC asks for the constitutional text and names the Rajasthan High Court, whereas UKPSC asks for a factual roll of who has held one particular State's office. Learn the provision from the RPSC item and the names from the UKPSC one; neither substitutes for the other.
MPPSC_2022_PRE_PaperI_Q862022Supplies the mechanism behind Q60's answer rather than the same fact. MPPSC asks which Article lets the President transfer a High Court judge from one court to another (Article 222); that power moves a sitting judge or a sitting Chief Justice between High Courts, and it sits alongside Article 217(1), under which a judge of one High Court is appointed Chief Justice of another — either way the office is normally filled from outside the State, which is why a judge elevated locally from the Uttarakhand Bar sits on the court without having headed it. What differs is that MPPSC tests a constitutional provision applicable everywhere, while UKPSC tests one State's list of office-holders.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Who is described on the High Court of Uttarakhand's own records as its founder Chief Justice?
- (a)Ashok A. Desai
- (b)S. H. Kapadia
- (c)V. S. Sirpurkar
- (d)Barin Ghosh
Answera — Ashok A. Desai heads the court's list of former Chief Justices and is designated its founder Chief Justice, having taken charge after the court was created in 2000.(b) Kapadia followed him and later became Chief Justice of India, but he did not open the roll. (c) Sirpurkar came after Kapadia. (d) Barin Ghosh held the office much later, in the 2010s.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which of the following served as Chief Justice of the High Court of Uttarakhand and later became the Chief Justice of India?
- (a)K. M. Joseph
- (b)J. S. Khehar
- (c)Ramesh Ranganathan
- (d)Vipin Sanghi
Answerb — J. S. Khehar headed the Uttarakhand High Court in 2009-10, then the Karnataka High Court, and was Chief Justice of India from January to August 2017.(a) K. M. Joseph also led the Uttarakhand High Court and was later elevated to the Supreme Court, but he retired as a judge of that court without becoming CJI.
(c) Ramesh Ranganathan and (d) Vipin Sanghi both held the office at Nainital but neither was appointed to the Supreme Court, so neither could have become CJI.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Under which Article is a Judge of a High Court appointed by the President after consultation with the Chief Justice of India, the Governor of the State, and — where the appointee is not the Chief Justice — the Chief Justice of that High Court?
- (a)Article 214
- (b)Article 216
- (c)Article 217
- (d)Article 222
Answerc — Article 217(1) lays down this consultation requirement for the appointment of High Court judges. (a) Article 214 only provides that there shall be a High Court for each State.(b) Article 216 says a High Court shall consist of a Chief Justice and such other judges as the President may from time to time appoint; it constitutes the court but does not prescribe the consultation.
(d) Article 222 deals with the transfer of a judge from one High Court to another, not with the original appointment.