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Justice V Kameswar Rao Takes Oath as Chief Justice Amid 10-Judge Vacancy
Justice Valluri Kameswar Rao was sworn in as the 49th Chief Justice of the on Sunday, , bringing an end to a two-month period during which the court functioned under an . The was administered by Bihar Governor Lt. Gen. Syed Ata Hasnain (Retd) at a ceremony held at Lok Bhavan in Patna, attended by Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary, Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary, and other dignitaries. Justice Rao takes charge of a court that has seen four permanent Chief Justices in the past year and is currently running ten judges short of its of 53.
The appointment follows a recommendation by the , headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, at its meeting on . The notified the appointment on , as part of a batch of notifications covering Chief Justices for eight High Courts. Until Sunday, the court had been functioning under Justice Sudhir Singh, who had been appointed to under following the retirement of Justice Meenakshi Madan Rai on .
Who is Justice V Kameswar Rao?
Born on , Justice Rao graduated with honours in Geography from Delhi University in 1987 and completed his Bachelor of Laws degree from the same university in 1990. He enrolled as an advocate with the in and built a practice before the , the , and the Principal Bench of the at New Delhi, also appearing before the and the circuit bench of the at Port Blair.
Service law and administrative law formed a substantial part of his practice, a background reflected in his designation as a by the in . He was elevated as an of the on (though some sources record ) and confirmed as a on . In , he was transferred to the , where he went on to serve as from until his repatriation to the on . That earlier stint gives him prior experience of running a High Court, which the Patna assignment will draw on.
Speaking at the valedictory ceremony of the XVII CNLU National Parliamentary Debate at on Sunday, Justice Rao highlighted that Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) was emerging as a field of opportunity for law graduates and advised students to equip themselves with knowledge of IPR. He assured the university of his support.
A Court of Frequent Changes
The more striking feature of this appointment is the sequence it follows. Since , the has had four permanent Chief Justices, with acting arrangements filling the gaps between them.
Justice P B Bajanthri was sworn in as the 46th Chief Justice in and demitted office the following month. Justice Sangam Kumar Sahoo took charge as the 47th Chief Justice in and retired on . Justice Meenakshi Madan Rai, the 48th, was sworn in on and retired on , a of about five weeks. Justice Sudhir Singh has stepped in as twice during this period, most recently for the two months preceding Sunday’s ceremony.
Measured against that, Justice Rao’s is comparatively substantial. He attains the age of 62 on , which gives him roughly eleven months in office, the longest continuous stretch any Chief Justice of the court will have had since 2025.
Challenges Ahead: Vacancies and Backlog
At the time the made its recommendation in , the was functioning with 43 judges against a of 53, a shortfall of ten. That position had already improved on the year before, the Centre having appointed seven new judges to the court in June 2026.
On the caseload, the most recent authoritative figures placed before , which relate to , showed just over two lakh cases pending before the High Court, split between roughly 1.08 lakh civil and 92,000 criminal matters, alongside a district judiciary backlog in Bihar of over 36 lakh cases. Those numbers are now more than two years old, but they indicate the scale of the institution Justice Rao takes charge of.
The office of a High Court Chief Justice is not merely ceremonial. The Chief Justice is , chairs the , leads the court’s own in recommending candidates for , and sets the institutional agenda on arrears, infrastructure and the district judiciary. Each of those functions rewards continuity and suffers from its absence.
A Chief Justice with a of weeks can do little beyond keeping the machinery running. Roster reorganisation, and recommendations for all take months to move through the system, and each change at the top tends to reset them. The pattern at Patna is not unique. A count in put seven High Courts across the country under acting Chief Justices at the same time, with several more Chief Justices due to retire before the end of the year, which points to a structural timing problem in how appointments are sequenced rather than anything peculiar to Bihar.
The ’s contemplates that the process of filling a Chief Justice vacancy should begin about a month before the incumbent retires. In practice the gap between a retirement and a successor taking oath has frequently run to weeks or months, with bridging the interval. Whether the recent run of short tenures at Patna produces a more settled arrangement is the question worth watching over the next year.
Implications for the Legal Community
For the Bar at Patna, the immediate interest will be in how the new Chief Justice approaches and the allocation of , the two levers that most directly affect practitioners. His background in service and administrative law, and his prior experience of heading the in an acting capacity, are the clearest indicators available at this stage.
Justice Rao’s comments on IPR also signal a potential focus on emerging areas of law, which could influence the court’s approach to commercial and intellectual property disputes. With a relatively longer of eleven months, he has a window to implement meaningful reforms in and , provided the appointment process itself does not again become a source of instability.
The now enters a period of relative continuity. For legal professionals practising in Bihar, the next year will be critical in assessing whether the institution can begin to address its persistent vacancy and backlog challenges under steady leadership.
Conclusion
Justice V Kameswar Rao’s swearing-in marks the end of a revolving-door phase for the . With a of nearly a year, he has an opportunity to bring stability and address systemic issues. The legal community will watch closely to see whether the court can reduce its vacancy deficit, tackle the massive backlog, and restore confidence in its administrative efficiency.
