New Delhi, July 15 -- In a major shake-up in the higher judiciary, the Union government on Monday cleared a series of long-pending appointments and transfers, notifying new chief justices for nine high courts and the relocation of 19 high court judges across India. The flurry of late-evening notifications came seven weeks after the Supreme Court collegium, under Chief Justice of India (CJI) BR Gavai, recommended these sweeping changes on May 26, marking his first decisive move after taking over as the head of the Indian judiciary. The collegium also comprised justices Surya Kant, Vikram Nath, JK Maheshwari and BV Nagarathna. The long-awaited approvals end weeks of bureaucratic impasse and underline continuing friction between the judiciary and executive over the pace and manner of processing collegium recommendations. These include charges of "selective action" - a practice that CJI Gavai has explicitly cautioned against, holding that fragmented implementation of collegium decisions disturbs seniority and erodes public confidence in the appointment process. Among the significant moves, the Delhi high court received an infusion of six new judges, including the return of justice Kameshwar Rao, earlier transferred to Karnataka, and judges from the high courts of Punjab & Haryana and Bombay. The other high courts that saw a change in leadership include Rajasthan, Karnataka, Gauhati, Patna and Jharkhand, where new chief justices were appointed, and Madras, Tripura, Telangana and Jharkhand, where incumbent chiefs were rotated. This revamp comes in the wake of growing unease within judicial circles over the Centre's delay in acting on several crucial collegium files. While the government had swiftly notified the appointment of three new Supreme Court judges - justices NV Anjaria, Vijay Bishnoi, and AS Chandurkar - just four days after their recommendation on May 26, it had stalled action on other proposals from the same meeting for over a month. As reported first by HT on June 19, CJI Gavai is learnt to have taken strong exception to this practice. He has conveyed to the government that collegium recommendations, whether for appointment or transfer, must be acted upon in their entirety, without picking and choosing. While the May 26 collegium meeting proposed 22 transfers, the government on Monday cleared 19 recommendations, leaving three transfers to the Telangana high court pending. The Memorandum of Procedure (MoP), the document guiding judicial appointments, does not prohibit segregation, but the judiciary has consistently resisted the practice. In 2014, then CJI RM Lodha wrote to the Union law minister protesting the exclusion of Gopal Subramanium from a batch of four SC recommendations. More recently, in 2022-23, a bench led by justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul warned that such selective approvals undermined the "workable trust" between the judiciary and executive. Despite Monday's progress, significant concerns remain. The government is yet to act on an additional 36 recommendations made by the collegium on July 2, after an unprecedented two-day round of interviews with 54 candidates. The latest recommendations include elevations to high courts in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana, Patna, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and others, in a move aimed at plugging the alarming shortfall in judicial strength. As of July 1, India's 25 high courts had 371 vacancies against a sanctioned strength of 1,122 judges. Furthermore, delays and inaction have also led to disillusionment among candidates. In recent weeks, two senior advocates withdrew their consent for elevation - a rare but telling sign of eroding morale. Advocate Rajesh Sudhakar Datar, recommended in September 2024 for the Bombay high court, withdrew on July 5 after waiting over nine months without communication. "It is for the sake of my own self-respect, and for the respect of the entire bar," he told HT earlier....