Who Is Justice Prakash Naolekar, Set To Chair Centre's High-Level Committee On Demographic Change?

Last Updated:May 26, 2026, 19:22 IST

Justice (retd) Naolekar will chair a high-level committee constituted by the Centre to assess demographic change due to illegal immigration and other unnatural causes.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday announced that the Centre has constituted a high-level committee on demographic change for a “comprehensive assessment of demographic changes occurring across India due to illegal immigration and other unnatural causes."

The committee will be chaired by retired Justice Prakash Prabhakar Naolekar. Along with a Census Commissioner, three experts – retired IAS officer Durga Shankar Mishra, retired IPS officer Balaji Srivastava and Dr Shamika Ravi will be members of the committee.

The committee will scientifically assess the demographic changes occurring in various parts of the country due to illegal immigration and other abnormal reasons, analyse their causes, and recommend appropriate policy, legislative, and administrative measures, as per an official statement.

Who Is Justice Naolekar?

Born on September 29, 1943, Justice Prakash Prabhakar Naolekar served as a judge in the Supreme Court from 2004 to 2008. He is the son of the late Prabhakar R Naolekar, a leading lawyer of the Madhya Pradesh High Court. A third-generation lawyer, he graduated from the Jabalpur University with a Bachelor’s in Commerce in 1963 and got his law degree from the same university in 1965.

Justice (retd) Naolekar joined the Bar in December 1965 in the chambers of Justice AP Sen and later Justice JS Verma, the latter of whom went on to become the Chief Justice of India in 1997. Justice (retd) Naolekar practised as an advocate in civil, criminal, constitution, company, labour and service matters.

He was appointed as a standing counsel for Raipur University in 1983 and Madhya Pradesh High Court, municipal corporations and various co-operative societies in 1983. He also served as the Vice President of Madhya Pradesh High Court Bar Association from 1983 to 1989.

He was elevated to the bench of the MP High Court as a Permanent Judge in 1992, before being transferred to the Rajasthan High Court in 1994. He was later appointed as the Chief Justice of the Gauhati High Court in 2002.

He was one of the judges whom Shah had met back in 2018, as part of the Sampark for Samarthan campaign at his residence in Jabalpur.

What Will The Committee Do?

The Committee has been constituted to analyse the reasons for demographic changes and recommend appropriate policy measures. The proposed structure and terms of reference of the committee are:

• To comprehensively deliberate upon the challenges arising from demographic changes, including illegal immigration.
• To study the possible causes of such demographic changes, such as cross-border activities (including illegal immigration), economic opportunities, and other socio-environmental factors.
• To identify the underlying factors behind these changes, which include illegal immigration, abnormal settlement patterns, and orchestrated migration.
• To analyse structural population changes at the level of religious or social communities, particularly where they deviate from broader trends.
• To recommend a streamlined and permanent operational mechanism for the legal, fair, and time-bound identification, detention, and deportation of illegal immigrants already residing in the country.
• To recommend an appropriate institutional mechanism to strengthen border management, population stabilisation, and identification systems for the continuous monitoring of such trends.
• To propose a comprehensive policy framework to enhance coordination between the Central and State Governments on matters related to illegal immigration and the resulting demographic imbalances.
• The Committee may recommend any other measures it deems appropriate to address the challenges arising from demographic changes, including illegal immigration.

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