Hyderabad: The Centre on Monday, October 5, appointed Justice P Sam Koshy as the acting Chief Justice of the Telangana High Court, hours after it cleared the elevation of Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh to the Supreme Court.
According to a notification issued by the Union Law Ministry, the President appointed Justice Koshy to the post. He will take charge from the date Justice Singh relinquishes office on his elevation to the apex court.
Article 223 allows the President to appoint a judge of a High Court to discharge the duties of the Chief Justice when the post falls vacant.
Earlier in the day, the government notified the appointment of three High Court Chief Justices as Supreme Court judges. They are Justice Sunita Agarwal of the Gujarat High Court, Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya of the Delhi High Court and Justice Singh.
The Supreme Court collegium had recommended their names on September 28. With the three appointments, the top court will have 37 judges against a sanctioned strength of 38.
Justice Agarwal’s elevation takes the number of women judges in the Supreme Court to three.
Justice Singh enrolled as an advocate in 1990 after studying law at Delhi University. He practised in the Patna High Court from 1990 to 2000 and in the Jharkhand High Court from 2001 until he was made a judge. He took oath as Chief Justice of the Telangana High Court on July 19, 2025.
This is Justice Koshy’s second spell at the helm of the Telangana High Court. He had briefly discharged the duties of Chief Justice from July 18 to 19 last year, in the interval before Justice Singh was sworn in.
Born on April 30, 1967, Justice Koshy obtained a commerce degree in 1987 and a law degree in 1990, and enrolled as an advocate on March 9, 1991.
He practised civil, constitutional, service and labour law in the Madhya Pradesh High Court at Jabalpur till October 2000, and then in the Chhattisgarh High Court at Bilaspur till September 2013. He served as government advocate in the Chhattisgarh High Court from 2002 to 2004 and as deputy advocate general in 2005-06.
He was appointed an additional judge of the Chhattisgarh High Court on September 16, 2013, and made permanent on March 8, 2016.
In July 2023, the Supreme Court collegium recommended his transfer at his own request. It initially proposed shifting him to the Madhya Pradesh High Court, but Justice Koshy asked to be sent to any other High Court, following which the collegium chose Telangana. He took oath as a judge of the Telangana High Court on July 27, 2023.
In March this year, he was nominated chairman of a high-level National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) committee set up to review the Legal Aid Defense Counsel System, the scheme under which legal aid lawyers defend accused persons who cannot afford counsel.
This post was last modified on October 6, 2026 12:05 pm