Justice Arun Palli was sworn in on Wednesday as the Chief Justice of the High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh. The oath of office was administered by the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, Manoj Sinha.

His appointment follows the recommendation of the Supreme Court Collegium, which proposed his elevation shortly before the retirement of former Chief Justice Tashi Rabstan. After Justice Rabstan’s retirement on April 9, Justice Sanjeev Kumar had been serving as the Acting Chief Justice.

Justice Palli, who previously served as a judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, was officially appointed to his new role through a government notification issued on April 12.

Born on September 18, 1964, Justice Palli comes from a legal background—his father, Prem Kishan Palli, was a Senior Advocate and a former judge of the Himachal Pradesh High Court, retiring in 1998.

Justice Palli holds a commerce degree and completed his law studies at Panjab University in 1988. He began his legal practice at the Punjab and Haryana High Court and was appointed Additional Advocate General for Punjab in 2004, a position he held until 2007. Later that year, he was designated as a Senior Advocate.

He was elevated to the bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court on December 28, 2013. More recently, he served as the Executive Chairman of the Haryana State Legal Services Authority from May 31, 2023. On October 31, 2023, he was also nominated as a member of the Governing Body of the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) for a two-year term.