The Supreme Court collegium has recommended the names of 19 persons including 10 lawyers and nine judicial officers, for appointment as judges of the Madras High Court which now functions with a working strength of 52 judges as against its sanctioned strength of 75 including three serving in other High Courts.

According to a statement issued by the apex court administration, its collegium met on Monday (May 18, 2026) to consider proposals received from the High Court’s collegium on November 4, November 21, December 7 and December 10, 2025 for elevating many lawyers and judicial officers.

After considering the proposals in accordance with the Memorandum of Procedure for Appointment of High Court judges, the top court cleared the names of judicial offficers P. Murugan M.D. Sumathi, S. Alli, C. Thirumagal Chadrasekar, Dharmalingam Lingeswaran and Karthikeyan Balathandayutham from the first list.

The collegium further recommended the elevation of advocates N. Ramesh, G.K. Muthukumar, R. Rajesh Vivekananthan, S. Raveekumar, N. Dilip Kumar and E. Manoharan from among the names of lawyers proposed by the High Court collegium on November 21 last year.

Four more advocates — K. Govindarajan, Rajnish Pathiyil, K. Appadurai and R. Anitha — whose names were proposed on December 7 last year and three judicial officers — S. Karthikeyan, B. Murugesan and N. Gunasekaran — proposed on December 10 last year have also been cleared by the Supreme Court collegium.

Among those recommended, Ms. Alli is serving as the Registrar General of the High Court. Mr. Vivekanathan and Mr. Govindarajan were serving as Deputy Solicitors General at the principal seat of the High Court in Chennai and its Madurai Bench respectively. Mr. Ramesh and Mr. Pathiyil were the Special Public Prosecutors for the Directorate of Enforcement.