Seven supreme court judges handling sensitive cases are due to retire in the next four months. And till May, the chief justice of India had not recommended the name of any judge for appointment in the apex court.

The ministry of law and justice provided this information to Delhi based RTI activist Mannish Bhatnagar.

The list of judges who are due to retire between July and October 2011 includes justices B Sudershan Reddy, R V Raveendaran, Markandeya Katju, V S Sirpurkar, Harjit Singh Bedi, Dr M K Sharma and J M Panchal

Justice B Sudershan Reddy and justice Nijjar have been hearing the 'black money' case. The bench has criticised the law enforcement agencies for being lax to the influential players in the case. The orders of the bench were effective in getting Hasan Ali Khan - allegedly the biggest tax evader in the country - behind the bars. The case will be affected as justice Reddy is due to retire on July 7. Chattisgarh government’s plea to disband Salwa Judum is also in the court of justices Reddy and Nijjar.

Justice Katju was member of the supreme court bench which in May described honour killings as rarest of the rare cases and recommended death sentence for those who were perpetuating it.

Recently, Katju wrote to the prime minister requesting him to release an 80-year-old Pakistani prisoner on humanitarian grounds.

Justice Raveendran was in news in February this year for rescuing himself from hearing the Lavalin case.