Madras HC Acting Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari Appointed As CJ

Justice MN Bhandari took charge as acting Madras HC CJ on November 22 replacing Justice Sanjib Banerjee.

Madras HC Acting Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari | Credit: ABP Nadu

Chennai: The Madras High Court on Thursday made Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari, who was appointed as an acting Chief Justice of Madras High Court, as the Chief Justice of the same HC. 

According to a report on PTI, the President of India was informed about the appointment through communication. 

Justice MN Bhandari took charge as acting Madras HC CJ on November 22. Justice Bhandari was born on September 30, 1960 and enrolled himself as a lawyer in May, 1983. 

He was elevated from Bar to Bench of Rajasthan HC in July 2007. He then served in Allahabad High Court from March 2019 before being transferred and posted as Acting Chief Justice of Madras HC in November.

However, Bhandari replaced Justice Sanjib Banerjee, who was transferred to Meghalaya HC. Earlier, the transfer of Sanjib Banerjee raised several controversies and even saw protests by lawyers and lawyers' associations in Tamil Nadu.

Meanwhile, just before the order of the President, Bhandari expressed concern over the Hijab row. The CJ asked, what is paramount--country or religion? This is shocking. He said, from current affairs it is found that these are nothing but efforts to divide the country by religion.

The first bench of CJ Bhandari and Justice Bharatha Chakravarthy was hearing a batch of pleas by Rangarajan Narasimhan from Srirangam who sought the court to order restricted entry into Hindu temples. On the dress code for devotees, the bench wondered, how a question to put up display boards on dress code will come up when there is no particular dress code.