Amid protest by lawyers against Rajasthan High Court Acting Chief Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma over his alleged misuse of administrative powers, the Supreme Court Collegium on Monday recommended replacing him with Justice Sanjay K Agrawal of the Chhattisgarh High Court.The Collegium also recommended the appointment of Justice Alpesh Yeshvant Kogje of the Gujarat High Court and Justice Dr Pushpendra Singh Bhat of the Rajasthan High Court as Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court and the Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court, respectively.The Collegium has recommended the appointment of Justice Krushna Ram Mohapatra of the Orissa High Court as the Chief Justice of the Chhattisgarh High Court, consequent upon the retirement of the incumbent Chief Justice on September 4.The decisions were taken at a Collegium meeting chaired by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Jattvibeday, the Supreme Court announced.The decision to recommend Justice Agrawal’s name as the next Rajasthan High Court Chief Justice came hours after Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma opted out of hearing cases following protests against him by the Rajasthan High Court Lawyers’ Association, which announced a complete strike till September 6 and decided to send representations to the CJI and President Droupadi Murmu. The development came days after Justice Sandeep Mehta of the Supreme Court urged the CJI to replace Justice Sharma “with immediate effect” with a Chief Justice from another state as he was allegedly misusing his administrative powers and manipulating case listings to favour “rich litigants”.In his three letters dated August 2, 10 and 17 addressed to the CJI, Justice Mehta accused the Rajasthan High Court Acting Chief Justice of “maladministration”, “malpractices”, “nepotism” and “favouritism” and serious administrative irregularities and selective case listings.Justice Mehta, who himself began his judicial career as a judge of the Rajasthan High Court in 2011, alleged that Justice Sharma misused his powers as master of the roster to selectively transfer cases to his own Bench, including matters involving influential and wealthy litigants.“I have been repeatedly requesting you to take a decision for appointing a Chief Justice from another state to Rajasthan High Court so that this unfortunate situation can be prevented. Continued ignorance of the request is, in my opinion, wholly against the interest of the institution,” Justice Mehta wrote to the CJI on August 17.