New Delhi: Ten days after the President issued an ordinance to increase the number of judges in the Supreme Court to 38, the SC collegium led by CJI Surya Kant on Wednesday recommended the Central government to appoint four HC chief justices – Sheel Nagu, Shri Chandrashekhar, Sanjeev Sachdeva, Arun Palli – and senior lawyer V Mohana as SC judges.With the appointment, Mohana will become the second woman after Justice Indu Malhotra to be appointed as an SC judge directly from the bar. The recommendations were finalized after a stormy preliminary discussion that lasted till after midnight at the CJI’s residence on May 22.However, the names were finalized on Wednesday by the collegium comprising CJI Kant and Justices Vikram Nath, JK Maheshwari, BV Nagarathna and MM Sundaresh after removing those names on which there were major differences of opinion. Upon appointment of these five as judges, the strength of the Supreme Court will increase from the present 32 to 37, leaving only one vacancy.Punjab and Haryana HC Chief Justice Nagu was part of the three-member in-house investigation committee constituted by then CJI Sanjiv Khanna for the discovery of a huge amount of cash in a half-burnt state at the residence of then Delhi HC judge Yashwant Verma in March last year. Justice Verma has resigned from the post of judge of Allahabad HC.Justice Nagu was appointed as a judge of MP HC in May 2011 and then as CJ of Punjab and Haryana HC on July 9, 2024. As an SC judge, his tenure will be three and a half years and he is scheduled to retire on December 31, 2029.Mohana is a first generation lawyer and became an advocate on record in 1996. He was designated as senior counsel by the SC in April 2015. Hailing from Coimbatore, she practiced law for over 37 years after obtaining her law degree in 1988.Bombay HC Chief Justice Chandrashekhar will have less than four years’ tenure in the SC and will retire on May 24, 2030. He was part of the Judges Inquiry Committee appointed by the Speaker of the Lok Sabha which was probing the alleged misconduct of Justice Yashwant Verma. MP HC Chief Justice Sachdeva’s tenure on appointment to the SC will be three and a half years. Chief Justice Palli of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh HC will have a tenure of three years and four months upon his appointment as an SC judge.