2 min readNew DelhiOct 12, 2004 12:00 AM IST
First published on: Oct 12, 2004 at 02:43 AM IST
The Supreme Court collegium, the highest administrative body for the nation’s judiciary, has decided to transfer 10 sitting High Court judges as a punitive measure. Prominent among them are two seniormost judges of the Punjab and Haryana High Court who led the first-ever strike by members of the higher judiciary.
The collegium’s action comes days after the Prime Minister, at a conference of Chief Ministers and Chief Justices, warned that ‘‘any further delay’’ in tackling the ‘‘growing incidence of corruption’’ in the judiciary would only end up undermining its independence.
Last fortnight, the collegium, comprising Chief Justice of India R C Lahoti and the next four in seniority in the Supreme Court, recommended that Justice G S Singhvi and Justice V K Bali be transferred from Chandigarh ‘‘in public interest.’’
These two are among 11 judges the collegium wants transferred simultaneously from four high courts. Barring a judge from Madhya Pradesh who is being moved on his own request, the other 10 in that category are being transferred punitively on the basis of complaints received against them.
Formal orders effecting these transfers will be issued after the President’s approval.
The action against Singhvi and Bali confirms the The Indian Express report, carried on May 3, on ‘‘an emerging consensus’’ in the collegium to punish those who engaged in ‘‘trade unionism’’ and organised the strike by 25 high court judges on April 19.
The punishment is most telling in Singhvi’s case as he was due to be promoted around this time as Chief Justice of a high court.
Singhvi will instead be reduced from the No 1 ‘‘puisne judge’’ in Chandigarh to No 4 in the Gujarat High Court.
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Madras High Court Chief Justice on way out
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Besides the 10 punitive transfers of judges, the collegium has cleared the appointment of Chief Justices for seven high courts. In the process, Madras HC Chief Justice B S Reddy, targeted by the DMK and a section of the Bar over his code of conduct for lawyers, is being moved out.
Punitive transfer:
8226; 4 from Punjab 038; Haryana HC: 2 for strike, 2 for complaints
8226; 4 from Allahabad HC; 2 from Jharkhand HC
Chief Justices being transferred
8226; Madras HC: Chief Justice B S Reddy moves out
8226; Chandigarh: Chief Justice Roy moves to Patna HC
8226; Kerala: Chief Justice N K Sodhi to Karnataka
8226; Calcutta: Acting Chief Justice A N Ray to Allahabad
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This will effectively block his chances of becoming a chief justice by two to three years.
Ironically, Singhvi and Bali may seek comfort in the fact that their Chief Justice, Justice B K Roy, who had called for action against them, has himself been transferred as well.
It was Roy’s cracking the whip that led to the April 19 strike. Roy had issued in-house notices to two high court judges, Justices Viney Mittal and Virender Singh, for accepting free membership in a club embroiled in litigation.
Those notices were in turn a fallout of a PIL Roy had initiated early this year against the controversial Forest Hill Golf and Country Club for diverting 381 acres of forest land near Chandigarh for non-forest purposes even after the Centre had refused permission under the Forest Conservation Act, 1980.
In a bid to protect its illegal enterprise, the club had given free membership to an array of public servants, including top politicians, bureaucrats and police officers.
For the record, though, the proposal now to transfer Roy to the Patna High Court is part of a larger exercise of filling up vacancies of Chief Justices of various high courts.
Even so, the collegium’s decision to move Roy involves two procedural deviations.
One, he was not consulted even though, as per the established practice, a chief justice is never transferred without his consent. Two, he is being shifted to his home town, Patna, in the teeth of a 25-year-old policy of having chief justices from outside the state.
Another anomaly resulting from the collegium’s decision is that the No 3 puisne judge in Chandigarh, Justice H S Bedi, has ended up being rewarded even though he also played a leading role in the strike.
In fact, immediately after the strike, Bedi was summoned to Delhi along with Singhvi and Bali in April and given a dressing down by the then CJI, V N Khare, and CJI-designate Rajendra Babu.
With the exit of Singhvi and Bali, Bedi will now be the seniormost judge in Chandigarh after the chief justice.
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