Don’t Want To Disclose Reasons Behind Transfers But We Will If Needed, Says Supreme Court Collegium

The Supreme Court on Thursday issued a public statement on the recent transfer recommendations of chief justices of some high courts and said those recommendations were “made for cogent reasons after complying with the required procedure in the interest of better administration of justice.’’

The statement, uploaded on the Supreme Court website, does not refer to any specific case but leaves the ground open for revealing it at a later stage.

‘’Though it would not be in the interest of the institution to disclose the reasons for transfer, if found necessary, the collegium will have no hesitation in disclosing the same,’’ the statement issued by Supreme Court Secretary General Sanjeev S Kalgaonkar said.

The Supreme Court collegium consists of five senior-most judges of the top court and is the final authority in matters of appointments and transfers of judges in the higher judiciary. The collegium currently includes Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, Justice SA Bobde, Justice NV Ramanna, Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Rohinton Nariman.

The decision of the collegium has been subject to controversy after Madras High Court Chief Justice VK Tahilramani, who is also the senior-most high court judge in the country, resigned in protest after she was transferred to the Meghalaya High Court.

Even before the controversy around Justice Tahilramani could die down, former Supreme Court judge Justice Madan Lokur wrote an article where he called the recent decisions of the collegium one which border on arbitrariness.

“There are no fixed criteria for selection of judges to the SC and the requirements keep changing. There are considerations of seniority, adequate representation of high courts, gender, religion, caste and of course merit sometimes finds a place as well.’’ Justice Lokur said in his article for The Economic Times.

The statement of the Supreme Court appears to say that the decisions of the collegium were not arbitrary and had valid grounds behind them, said Senior Advocate Arvind Datar.

“The collegium seems to suggest that they do not want to disclose the reasons because if they disclose the reasons there will be embarrassment for the people whose transfers have taken place,” Datar said.

He, however, added that the top court must come up with policy recommendations which should govern the issue of transfers of high court judges even if they are not disclosed in public. The person who is sought to be transferred must be informed in advance and given a chance to make amends, he said.

The top court, according to former attorney general Mukul Rohatgi, must reveal the reasons which led to the transfer of Justice Tahilramani as “nobody knows what is happening behind closed doors’’.

Referring to Justice Lokur’s article, Rohatgi, who as attorney general had argued against the collegium system of appointment of judges in the National Judicial Appointment Commission case, points out that today the collegium is being criticised by the judges who themselves had upheld its primacy.

“It is in the interest of all concerned that the reasons should be disclosed. In fact, the person who is subject to transfer should at least know why she has been transferred. More so, when you have only two lady chief justices. She has been a judge for 20 years. What has happened suddenly?’’ Mr. Rohatgi told BloombergQuint over the phone. “The earlier this collegium system is abolished and a more transparent system is brought in, the better it will be for the Indian judiciary.”