Telangana Bar Association takes up transfer row with CJI

The unease in the legal fraternity over the yardstick for promotions and transfers ordered by the Supreme Court collegium appears to be escalating with each passing day.
Supreme Court (File Photo | EPS)
Supreme Court (File Photo | EPS)

HYDERABAD/NEW DELHI: The unease in the legal fraternity over the yardstick for promotions and transfers ordered by the Supreme Court collegium appears to be escalating with each passing day.

On Thursday, the ongoing boycott by the Telangana Bar over the transfer of high court judge PV Sanjay Kumar to Punjab snowballed with members of the Andhra Pradesh Bar abstaining from work to show solidarity. The Andhra Bar boycott will continue on Friday.

Parallelly, a delegation of senior advocates from the Telangana High Court met Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi at his chambers in the Supreme Court on Thursday and urged him to roll back the judge’s transfer. The CJI gave them a patient hearing and assured them he would look into the matter, it is reliably learnt.

The delegation gave the CJI a copy of the resolution on-court boycott adopted by the Bar association at its extraordinary general body meeting recently. The delegation then shared copies of the resolution with other members of the collegium — justices SA Bobde, N V Ramana, Arun Mishra and R F Nariman.
Later, the delegation took up the issue with Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.

The unease within the Supreme Court on bypassing seniority for promotion — flagged by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul — got further amplitude on Tuesday as Justice R Banumathi wrote to the CJI echoing the brother judge’s thoughts. She is the sixth-most senior judge in the SC.

Criticising the lack of transparency in the collegium’s decision to elevate four HC chief justices to the SC, she pointed out that Himachal Chief Justice V Ramasubramanian was picked for promotion over Manipur Chief Justice Ramalingam Sudhakar, who is senior to him. The parent court of both Justice Ramasubramanian and Justice Sudhakar is the Madras High Court. Also the candidature of Justice Pradeep Nandrajog, Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court, who is a serial number 2 in the all-India high court seniority list has been ignored, she pointed out.

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