SC collegium recommends 2 women lawyers as HC judges

Kochi: The Supreme Court collegium on Tuesday recommended the names of two Malayali women advocates Liz Mathew Anthraper, a senior advocate practising in the Supreme Court, and advocate A K Preetha, a lawyer practising in the Kerala HC for appointment as judges of the Kerala High Court. The collegium, headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant, approved their names at a meeting. It also cleared a proposal for the appointment of three judicial officers Rajeshwari Narayana Hegde, Kedambadi Ganesh Shanthi and Mahadevappa Brungesh as judges of the Karnataka High Court.The Kerala HC collegium had recommended the names of Liz Mathew and Preetha for appointment as judges in April 2025, and the proposal had since been pending before the SC collegium. Now that it has cleared their names, the matter will be decided by the central govt based on its recommendation. Preetha, a native of Peermade and the daughter of late advocate B R Aravindan Nair and Krishnamma, obtained her law degree from the Kerala Law Academy, Thiruvananthapuram, and enrolled as an advocate in 1997. She has 29 years of experience practising before the HC, labour court and industrial tribunal. Her husband, S S Giri Sankar, is the principal of St Dominic's College of Law, Kanjirappally, in Kottayam.Liz Mathew, the daughter of Mathew Anthraper of Ernakulam and Mariamma, is a graduate of the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru. She worked as a junior to former Supreme Court judge Justice Indu Malhotra and former attorney general K K Venugopal. In 2008, she cleared the SC advocate-on-record (AoR) examination and established her independent practice. She served as standing counsel for the state of Kerala from 2011 to 2016 and was designated a senior advocate in Jan 2024 along with her husband Adv Rakendu Basant. She appeared for the state govt in several high-profile cases, including the Sabarimala women's entry case and the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple case.