Justice Alpesh Kogje of Gujarat High Court in Line to Become Chief Justice of Madhya Pradesh High Court

Justice Alpesh Y. Kogje, a judge of the Gujarat High Court, is likely to be appointed the next Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, according to legal circles tracking the Supreme Court Collegium's deliberations. The name of a judge from the Bombay High Court is also said to be under consideration for the post.

The Chief Justice of a state High Court holds administrative charge over the institution in addition to judicial duties, overseeing roster allocation, infrastructure and coordination with the state government on judicial appointments and vacancies. The Madhya Pradesh High Court, headquartered in Jabalpur with benches in Indore and Gwalior, is among the larger High Courts by case pendency, making the Chief Justice's administrative role in managing case flow and judge strength a significant one. The Chief Justice also chairs the High Court's collegium for recommending elevations from the bar and the subordinate judiciary, a function that shapes the composition of the court for years beyond the individual Chief Justice's own tenure. Coordinating sittings across three separate seats of the court, each with its own bar association and local caseload, adds a further administrative layer that Chief Justices of Madhya Pradesh have had to manage.

Justice Kogje, born July 16, 1969, was elevated as an Additional Judge of the Gujarat High Court on April 6, 2016, and has since served on the court for close to a decade, presiding over matters as part of the Ahmedabad-based bench alongside colleagues elevated in the same batch. His name has previously come up in Supreme Court Collegium discussions regarding transfers of Gujarat High Court judges to other High Courts as part of a broader set of transfer recommendations affecting several sitting Gujarat judges, including Justices Kumari Gita Gopi, Hemant M. Prachchhak and Samir J. Dave, whose proposed transfers to other High Courts were part of the same collegium exercise. His near-decade on the Gujarat bench has given him exposure across a range of civil, criminal and constitutional matters typical of a judge nearing consideration for a Chief Justice's post.

Any elevation to Chief Justice of another High Court necessarily follows a transfer out of the judge's parent court, a convention the Collegium follows to maintain a degree of separation between a Chief Justice and the bar of the court where they practised before elevation to the bench. The practice also spreads administrative experience more evenly across India's High Courts rather than concentrating it within a single judge's home jurisdiction over an entire career.

The move, if confirmed, would be part of the Collegium's ongoing process of filling Chief Justice vacancies across High Courts through transfers of sitting judges, a practice intended to bring administrative leadership from outside a court's own establishment. Final recommendations from the Collegium require government notification before an appointment takes formal effect, a process that has in the past taken anywhere from a few weeks to several months depending on the government's own processing timelines.

The Madhya Pradesh High Court has functioned without clarity on its permanent Chief Justice leadership in the recent period, a gap that has added to the interest in how the Collegium resolves the pending recommendation. A prolonged vacancy at the top of a High Court can slow decisions on judge transfers, infrastructure sanctions and administrative matters that typically require the Chief Justice's sign-off, lawyers practising across the court's three seats say.

No formal notification confirming the appointment has been issued, and officials say the matter awaits the Collegium's final decision before it moves to the government for the customary approval process. The identity of the Bombay High Court judge also under consideration has not been officially disclosed.