Justice Ramesh Ranganathan, the Acting Chief Justice of the common High Court of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, has created a record of sorts. He will be remembered as the longest serving Acting Chief Justice in the in the history of the high court. Justice Ranganathan was appointed on July 30 2016 as ACJ. This is the first time that the high court has functioned for close to two years without a permanent chief justice.

On earlier occasions, Justices P. Satyanarayana Raju, A. Sambasiva Rao, Alladi Kuppuswami, P. Basireddy, A. Lakshman Rao, Syed Shah Mohammed Quadri, M.N. Rao, N.Y. Hanumanthappa, Bilal Nazki, Meena Kumar, Ghulam Mohammed, P.C. Ghosh and N.V. Ramana were all Acting Chief Justices for a short period of time.

Justice D.B. Bhosale was Acting Chief Justice for over a year--from May 7, 2015 to July 30, 2016.

The Andhra Pradesh High Court was set up in November 1956 and Justice P. Chandra Reddy was the first judge to officiate as Acting Chief Justice for a period of five and a half months from January 31, 1958 to June 16 the same year.

After the division of undivided Andhra Pradesh in 2014, the high court in the Telangana capital, continued to serve as the common high court for both the states. Lawyers of Telangana have been particularly vocal in their demand for a separate high court for the state.