DELHI/CHENNAI: A day after issuing the orders for transferring Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee from Madras High Court to the Meghalaya High Court, the Centre on Tuesday, November 16, 2021, issued the notification for transferring Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari from the Allahabad High Court to the Madras High Court.
Bhandari will become the Acting Chief Justice of the chartered High Court, which has a sanctioned strength of 75 judges. He is the second senior-most judge at the Allahabad High Court and will become the senior-most judge at the Madras High Court. Bhandari served as the Acting Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court from June 26 to October 10, after the retirement of Chief Justice Sanjay Yadav.
He was appointed as a judge of the Rajasthan High Court on July 5, 2007. He served at the Rajasthan High Court until transferred to Allahabad High Court in 2019. The collegium proposed his transfer in 2019 and the reason it provided was that it was in the "interest of better administration of justice".
Justice Bhandari requested, through representations on January 18 and 23, 2019, that his proposed transfer be deferred for the time being for further consideration but the collegium rejected his plea.
The note published then stated: "The Collegium has carefully gone through the aforesaid representations and taken into consideration all relevant factors, including his request to defer his proposed transfer for the time being for further consideration in future. On reconsideration, the Collegium is of the considered view that it is not possible to accede to his request".
With his transfer, Justice Bhandari will become the Acting Chief Justice of the Madras High Court and is due to retire on September 12, 2022.
With the transfer notification of Justice Bhandari, curtains were brought down on Sanjib Banerjee's ten month stint at the chartered Madras High Court. He appeared not to be in his usual exuberant self at the Bench on Tuesday.
Unlike his usual way of hearing cases and delivering judgments till 1.30 pm in the first session, he wound up the proceedings a little early, around 12 pm.
A section of advocates, including 31 designated senior counsels, protested against the transfer and wanted him to be retained but their efforts went in vain. But another section of advocates signed a memorandum, supporting the decision of the Collegium and its due approval by the Centre.
Talking to reporters, advocate RC Paul Kanagaraj, State president of Tamil Nadu BJP's lawyers wing, said 574 lawyers have come in support of the decision of the Collegium, which can't be questioned.
"Under extraordinary circumstances, the decision can be questioned. But in the present case, they don't say any reason for protesting against the transfer. Agitating and defaming the Supreme Court Collegium is amounting to contempt of court," he said.
The memorandum signed by the supporters of Collegium's decision accused that a fringe group of lawyers, which had also opposed the transfer of former Chief Justice Vijaya Tahilramani, is indulging in creating a bad opinion on the judiciary.
"It is unfortunate that a fringe group of advocates keep creating such situations, which not only interferes with the administration in the judicial system but also create a bad opinion about the functioning of the entire judiciary among the public," it said.
Saying that they are indulging in mudslinging on the judiciary only with malafide intentions of demeaning the judiciary among the citizens, the memorandum requested the President, the Chief Justice of India and the All India Bar Council to take necessary against the members of the fringe group.