The SC Collegium has decided to transfer Madras High Court Chief Justice Vijaya Kamlesh Tahilramani as the chief justice of Meghalaya High Court, a daily reported.
According to the report, this is unusual development as Meghalaya High Court is the smallest high court in the country and “senior judges, particularly those holding fort at a bigger high court, are usually not transferred to such a small high court”.
The report said: “The decision to transfer Justice Tahilramani is surprising, given that she is one of the senior-most high court judges in the country and is among the only two women judges who are heading high courts at the moment… Justice Tahilramani was appointed the Madras High Court chief justice on August 8, 2018, transferred from Bombay High Court where she was the acting chief justice between 2015 and 2017 in three stints.”
The daily indicated that Justice Tahilramani judgment in the Bilkis Bano gang-rape case could be the reason for transfer.
“While at Bombay High Court, Justice Tahilramani had on May 7, 2017, upheld the conviction and life imprisonment of 11 people in the post-Gujarat riots Bilkis Bano gang-rape case, while setting aside the acquittal of seven persons, including policemen and doctors. The Bilkis Bano case had been transferred to Maharashtra from Gujarat by the Supreme Court. Justice Tahilramani’s judgment ran into almost 400 pages,” the report said.
-India Legal Bureau
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