A routine matter or a punishment post

Context: The Supreme Court collegium’s recommendation to transfer the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court to the Meghalaya High Court and senior-most judge of the Allahabad High Court to the Madras High Court resurfaces questions over judicial appointments and transfers.

Issues with transfer of Judges including Chief Justice (CJ)

• Common Interests of decision makers: The possibility of Central Governments interests merging with Supreme Court’s can lead to a situation of unjust transfers on basis of political interests.
• Element of punishment transfer: The transfer of CJ of Madras High Court to very low strength Meghalaya High Court within 10 months of his transfer from Culcutta High Court.
• Lack of proper court consultation: Normally when a transfer proposal is made, a judge in the Supreme Court who comes from the State in which the transferee judge is holding office is also consulted.
• In case of Madras High Court CJ, the consultee judges were made only with the junior-most judge of the Supreme Court and not the senior judges.
• Impromptu notification:  The decision taken as early as on September 16 was made public only about one and a half months later.
• Absence of justification: Justification to ‘If a judge is not considered suitable for one High Court, how does he become suitable for another High Court’ is absent.

Conclusion: If the reasons for a transfer are anything other than discharge of duties, then such a transfer proposal can only be termed as a punishment and not a routine matter and the Central government has to step in and clear the doubts. 

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