Eight new judges on Thursday joined the Madras high court, taking the total strength to 37, against the sanctioned 42.

Chief Justice B Subhashan Reddy administered the oath of office to the new judges, all of whom were members of the subordinate judiciary until elevation last week.

From among them, Justices R Bhanumathy, S Ashok Kumar and S K Krishnan were direct recruits as district judges while Justices T V Masilamani, A R Ramalingam, S Sardar Zackaria Hussain, M Thanikkachalam and S R Singaravelu rose from the ranks of the subordinate judiciary.

Justice Bhanumathy was in the news twice earlier, once when she handed down an unprecedented two life-terms to Premananda, a self-styled godman, who was charged with rape and murder at his ashram near Tiruchi.

Likewise, she did the same in the case of a medico, John David, following the death of fellow-student Navarasu, parts of whose body were thrown out of a running train.

Justice Bhanumathy had also probed the Vachathi incident in the 1990s, in which policemen were accused of gang-raping tribal women in a village in Dharmapuri district after the latter allegedly refused to cooperate in the hunt for sandalwood smuggler Veerappan.

Justice Ashok Kumar was in the limelight at the time of former chief minister and DMK chief K Karunanidhi's midnight arrest in 2001.

He was then the principal judge of the city civil court in Chennai.

At a hearing in his official residence at the crack of dawn, he declined the prosecution's plea for housing Karunanidhi in the Vellore prison and instead sent him to the central prison in Chennai.

In a few other cases too, he embarrassed the prosecution with his insightful quizzing on matters of fact and law.

The filling up of the vacancies had reportedly got bogged down after the Supreme Court and the state government, at various points of time, objected to some names in the list.

President Abdul Kalam issued formal orders on the appointments last week.