Tahilramani’s Transfer To Meghalaya HC – Free PDF Download

EVENTS

• The Collegium had recommended Chief Justice of Madras HC Vijaya K Tahilramani’s transfer to Meghalaya HC on August 28.
• Whereas Chief Justice of Meghalaya HC Justice AK Mittal transferred to Madras HC.

 THE COLLEGIUM

• The apex court collegium – comprises of CJI Ranjan Gogoi & justices S A Bobde, N V Ramana, Arun Mishra and R F Nariman
• Justice Tahilramani requested the collegium to reconsider the decision.
• The collegium in a meeting held on September 3, rejected the request made by Justice Tahilramani.
• The judge resigned on 6 September.
• She sent her resignation letter to President Ram Nath Kovind, a copy of which was sent to Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi.
• The resignation is yet to be accepted or rejected.

JUSTICE TAHILRAMANI

• Justice Tahilramani was appointed as a judge of the Bombay High Court on 26 June 2001.
• As a judge, she had presided the bench which delivered sentence in the Bilkis Bano case arising out of Gujarat riots.
• She became the Chief Justice of Madras HC on 8th August 2018.
• She is to due to retire on 2 October 2020.

 WHAT IS THE PROBLEM

• While the Constitution does provide for such transfers from one high court to another.
• Also, Chief Justice of India (CJI) is free to transfer the head of any high court in the interest of “better administration of justice”.
• It is extremely rare that the senior-most Chief Justice in the country is shifted from a large court with a complement of 75 judges to one of the newest courts, which has a strength of only 3 judges.

FIRST JUDGES CASE

• On January 19, 1981, the President issued an order to transfer then Chief Justice of the Madras High Court, M. M. Ismail, to the Kerala High Court.
• Lawyers, rushed to court against the transfer.
• The petitions, came up before a 7-judge Bench of SC.
• However, Justice Ismail decided to remain aloof from the legal hullabaloo.
• He subsequently resigned from office.
• In the first judge case, the SC had held that the word “consultation” in Article 124 and in Article 217 does not mean “concurrence” and the ultimate power would be vested with President.

 SO SHOULD HC JUDGES BE TRANSFERRED ON WHIM & FANCY OF COLLEGIUM?

 JUSTICE JAYANT PATEL CASE

• Justice Jayant Patel served as a judge of Gujarat HC since 2004.
• He was also acting Chief Justice of Gujarat in 2016.
• Thus he should have become Gujarat Chief Justice.
• But he was transferred to Karnataka HC.
• In Karnataka, Patel was second most senior and would have become Chief Justice.
• But Patel again was again transferred to the Allahabad High Court where he would have became No.3 in seniority.

CONCLUSION

• The current transfer of Justice Tahilramani has again brought the working of collegium system in focus.

• But the present system of appointment & transfer of judges many feel is still opaque which is in existence since 1993.

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