NEW DELHI, Nov 11: The transfer of Chief Justices of the High Court of Meghalaya has become too frequent for tongues not to wag.
Chief Justice Biswanath Somadder was transferred as the Chief Justice of the Sikkim High Court a little more than 17 months after he had taken charge of the High Court of Meghalaya on April 27, 2020. His successor, Ranjit V. More took oath on October 13 but attained superannuation on November 3.
The spotlight is now on the new incumbent announced by the Supreme Court Collegium.
The collegium has recommended the transfer of Madras High Court Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee to the High Court of Meghalaya.
Technically, there is nothing wrong because the status of high courts is the same across the states. But the Madras High Court has a sanctioned strength of 75 judges against just three in Meghalaya.
In 2019, Vijay Tahilramani had resigned as the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court when the collegium transferred her to Meghalaya.
The collegium’s decision then had raised eyebrows, since Justice Tahilramani was being moved from a court with many judges to a smaller court. “The Supreme Court Collegium in its meeting held on September 16, 2021, has recommended the transfer of Justice Sanjib Banerjee, Chief Justice of the Madras High Court to Meghalaya High Court,” said a statement uploaded on the apex court’s website. In addition to the CJI, Justices UU Lalit and AM Khanwilkar are part of the three-member collegium that currently takes decisions with regard to the transfer of high court judges.
The recommendation made by the collegium will now be forwarded to the Centre and then to the President for approval. Justice Banerjee has been at the Madras High Court for less than a year and during his stint, had taken suo motu cognisance of several important issues during the second wave of the pandemic.
During his tenure as the Chief Justice, he had also taken several government agencies to task, including the Election Commission which he said should be booked for murder for failing to ensure COVID-19 norms were followed during rallies and called the agency singularly responsible for the second wave.
He also pulled up the Greater Chennai Corporation for its efforts to prevent inundation in the city during the recent rains. The corporation has failed in its attempts to mitigate the sufferings of the affected people due to the water-logging because of the incessant rains, he had observed.
Officials in Meghalaya said frequent transfers of judges entailing swearing-in ceremonies often disrupt the legal system and important cases get delayed.
The Supreme Court derives its power to select, appoint and transfer judges.
After a spate of “punishment transfers” of upright judges by the Central government during the Emergency in 1975, the judiciary arrogated to itself the power in order to preserve judicial independence. Thus, the collegium system consisting of the Chief Justice of India and four seniormost judges of the Supreme Court was put in place.
