NEW DELHI: Abrupt resignation of Madras High Court Chief Justice Vijaya K Tahilramani after the Supreme Court Collegium declined her request to reconsider her transfer to Meghalaya, has created a controversy in the legal fraternity though neither side refused to budge from their positions.
Tahilramani tendered her resignation to President Ram Nath Kovind and sent a copy of it to Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi on Friday night. Prior to that, her appeal for cancelling her transfer to Shillong was already rejected by the Collegium headed by none other than the Chief Justice who hails from the Northeast.
Reacting to her resignation, senior Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan tweeted: “Shameful that the SC Collegium decided to transfer CJ Tahilramani (one of the senior most judges in India) of Chennai HC to the smallest court Meghalaya.
According to one report in the judiciary, the decision to transfer her was taken by the
Collegium based on the feedback received from Madras High Court. But curiously, maximum protest was received from that high court against her transfer.
Justice Tahilramani had made her decision to resign public on the night of September 6, during a dinner hosted by six Madras HC judges who had been made permanent recently.
“Thanking the judges for their cooperation ever since she took over as the Chief Justice on August 12 last year, Justice Tahilramani told them that she had discharged her duty without any fear or favour right from the time she assumed office as a judge of the Bombay High Court in June 2001,” one report said.
Lawyers practicing in the Madras HC had written a letter to the Supreme Court stating that “these kind of arbitrary transfers whittle away the independence of the judiciary and the confidence of judges.”
They had requested the Collegium to reconsider the transfer and “ensure that the confidence of the Bar and the Bench and the litigant public did not get eroded further.”
“To now transfer her to one of the smallest High Courts is nothing short of a punishment and a
humiliation. It cannot be justified on the principle of administrative interests, which is an
expression that can be used in every case. It is ironical that a person of her seniority is being
assigned to the smallest High Court. Any transfer should meet with an element of fairness but it is noticed, of late, that there appears to be no norms in the matter of transfer of judges,” the memorandum read.
Tahilramani, one of the senior-most judges in India, has overseen various important cases, such as the Bilkis Bano gang-rape case during the 2002 Gujarat communal violence, in which she upheld life imprisonment of 11 convicts in 2017.
