Hyderabad: Condemning the proposal to transfer Justice P.V. Sanjay Kumar, to the Punjab and Haryana High Court as a junior judge, advocates of the Telangana High Court on Tuesday en masse boycotted work at the court.
THCBA president T. Surya Karan Reddy, said, “two senior judges each from nine High Courts have been appointed as Chief Justice of 18 High Courts. This was not considered in the case of Telangana state. No senior judge from TS was appointed as Chief Justice for any HC.”
Senior counsels, including D. Prakash Reddy, Osman Shahid and P. Venugopal, opined that the issue was not confined to a particular judge or any individual in a higher post, saying, that the judiciary as a system was losing its independence.
Telangana Bar Council members Gandra Mohan Rao, M.A. Mukheed and V. Raghunath, said, “the High Court is being dumped with judges from other states, without appointing judges from amongst the advocates of Telangana state.”
They questioned the words, ‘better administration of justice’ in the recommendation of SC collegium to transfer Justice Kumar, asking, “does Telangana not need to have a better administration or does it apply only to Punjab.”
Assistant government pleader Sandella Bhooma Rao said, “It can be recalled that the Supreme Court senior judges, including present CJI Ranjan Gogoi, had come out before the media alleging that the then CJI was not following the roster of seniority. How could the current collegium take a decision to transfer Justice Sanjay Kumar without following the state roster?”
Justice Kumar was supposed to be elevated as Chief Justice of an appropriate High Court. No one from TS has been appointed Chief Justice after Justice R. Subash Reddy, Chief Justice of the Gujarat High Court, was elevated as the Supreme Court judge on November 2, 2018.
On August 28, the Supreme Court collegium had recommended the transfer of Justice Kumar, saying it was “in the interest of better administration of justice.”
