The appointment will take effect from March 6, a day after the retirement of the incumbent Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Srivastava on March 5.
Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari was part of a Division Bench that heard an appeal against an interim order staying the release of the film The Kerala Story 2 – Goes Beyond for 15 days.
The Bench, comprising Justices Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and P V Balakrishnan, reserved its verdict after a late-evening hearing that lasted nearly two hours on Thursday.
After hearing submissions on behalf of the film’s producer, Vipul Amrutlal Shah, who challenged the single judge’s interim order, the Bench observed that the objections to the film’s certification were in the nature of a public interest litigation (PIL). It questioned how such a plea could have been entertained by a single judge.
However, the Bench did not grant any interim relief at the end of the hearing, as sought by the producer.
Earlier, the single judge, Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas, had stayed the release of the film, observing that there was, prima facie, a manifest non-application of mind by the Central Board of Film Certification to the statutory requirements.
The judge also noted that the film The Kerala Story 2 – Goes Beyond appeared, at first glance, to carry the possibility of communal disharmony or denigration of a community, and held that releasing it without scrutiny by higher authorities would be legally improper.