Opposition to the Supreme Court Collegium’s recommendation to transfer Madras High Court Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee to Meghalaya is growing each day with 31 designated Senior Counsel and the Madras Bar Association have asked the apex court panel to reconsider its decision.
The senior counsels, including P S Raman, Nalini Chidambaram, and N R Elango, who is a Rajya Sabha MP from the DMK, told the Collegium that the “constant transfers and postings have left the Madras High Court in a state of constant flux.”
“Such short-lived tenures at the apex of the Court's hierarchy in a State bodes ill for the health of the institution and the justice delivery system. …This is so not only for the High Court but any institution more so the High Court, given the significant role it plays in preserving constitutional safeguards,” they wrote in their representation.
At an emergency meeting convened on Sunday, the Madras Bar Association expressed its deep concern at the “opaqueness” surrounding the transfers of Justice Banerjee and Justice T S Sivagnanam to the Calcutta High Court.
"The transfers are perceived to be in violation of the Memorandum of Procedure for transfer. Such transfers are perceived to be punitive and do not augur well for the independence of the judiciary,” the association said.
In the letter written on November 11, a copy of which was released to the media on November 14, the senior counsels noted that Justice Banerjee has hardly completed a year in the Madras High Court and pointed to disposal of a few thousand cases even during the devastating Covid pandemic.
“The orders predominantly were dictated in the open Court and delivered. When this is a fact that most advocates and litigants would readily agree, we are unable to fathom the reasons for his sudden transfer to another court,” the lawyers said.
On November 12, over 200 advocates had written to the Supreme Court Collegium questioning the need to transfer Justice Banerjee while batting for greater transparency in the way judges are transferred.
Justice Banerjee is the second CJ of the Madras High Court to have been recommended for a transfer to Meghalaya in two years. In 2019, the then CJ V L Tahilramani resigned in protest after she was transferred to Meghalaya.
In the letter written by senior counsels, they said earlier judgements of the Supreme Court have held that transfer of judges is inevitable to protect and to further "public interest" and "for better administration of justice".
“However in the subject transfer we are collectively unable, try as we may, to identify any easily discernible reason that could lend credence to the justification that this transfer has been necessitated in the public interest or for better administration of justice,” the senior counsels said.
They also batted for a fixed two-year tenure for Chief Justices of larger High Courts like the Madras High Court, in order to enable them to make worthwhile contributions to the improvement and development of the Institution. It is necessary to point out that in the last three years, we had three Chief Justices with intervening Acting Chief Justices at the helm of affairs, the senior counsels said.
The senior counsels also said Justice Banerjee has experience serving in large high courts and has “demonstrated capacity and talent to handle a large number of cases which requirement would not arise in a court like the Meghalaya High Court, which though is an equally important institution is a smaller one.”
They also asked the collegium not to view the representation as a “missive” aimed at supporting the cause of any individual but a plea to strengthen the health of the institution that we every day seek to serve,” the counsels said.
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