Justice TS Sivagnanam now chief justice of Calcutta HC

KOLKATA: The Centre on Monday appointed Justice TS Sivagnanam as the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court.
Justice Sivagnanam, the senior most Calcutta HC judge, has been officiating as the acting Chief Justice since March 31 after his predecessor Justice Prakash Shrivastava retired. The Supreme Court collegium had on February 9 recommended to the Centre that Justice Sivagnanam be appointed as the Calcutta HC Chief Justice. Over two and a half months later, the Centre issued the notification.
Born in 1963, Justice Sivagnanam's tenure as a judge runs till September 2025. Elevated to the Madras High Court bench in March 2009 from the bar, Justice Sivagnanam is a science undergraduate from Chennai's Loyola College, who later studied law at the Madras Law College and chose the legal profession as his career. Justice Sivagnanam, as a young lawyer, started off working in the chambers of senior advocate R Gandhi and then took up key assignments as the legal counsel of central government, Railways, Madras High court, All India Council for Technical Education, Customs, Excise, and revenue departments. In 2009, he was appointed as the additional judge of Madras HC. Two years later, in 2011, he became a permanent judge. In October 2021 he joined the Calcutta High Court.
Justice Sivagnanam's month-long tenure at the helm of Calcutta HC not only saw him presiding over some key cases, but also witnessed the country's oldest high court embracing technology like never before. Proceedings of his bench - court number 1 - several division benches, and multiple single-judge benches are now streamed live on YouTube on a daily trial basis, making court hearings accessible to anyone who has Internet. Online access is now readily available for case listings and filings, and the HC is continuing with its hybrid hearings, allowing advocates to argue their cases online. During Covid, Justice Sivagnanam, then in Madras High Court, had been at the forefront to adopt technological tools to tide over the pandemic disruptions.