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Collegium suggests transfer of Manipur HC acting chief justice
The Supreme Court collegium comprised Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud and justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai and Surya Kant
A day after the Union government assured the top court that the much-delayed appointment of the new full-time chief justice for Manipur high court will be notified soon, the collegium recommended the transfer of MV Muralidaran, acting chief justice of Manipur high court, to the Calcutta high court.
The collegium’s recommendation, which was finalised on Tuesday, also recorded its rejection of justice Muralidaran’s request to either let him continue in the Manipur high court or shift him to his parent high court at Madras.
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“Justice MV Muralidaran, by a communication dated October 10, 2023, requested to transfer him to his parent high court and if that is not feasible, to permit him to continue to function in the high court of Manipur, instead of transferring him to the high court at Calcutta. We have considered the requests. The Collegium does not find merit in the requests made by him,” stated the resolution, made public on Wednesday.
The Supreme Court collegium comprised Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud and justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai and Surya Kant.
HT on October 5 reported first that there was progress on the appointment of Delhi high court judge Siddharth Mridul as the chief justice of Manipur high court with the N Biren Singh-government replying to the Centre’s correspondence after withholding its opinion for three months. The recommendation to appoint justice Mridul as the Manipur high court chief justice was made on July 5.
On October 9, when the Supreme Court took up a contempt plea complaining against inordinate delay by the Centre in clearing names, attorney general R Venkataramani informed the bench, led by justice Kaul, that the notification to appoint the new full-time chief justice of Manipur high court will be issued soon. Responding, the bench cautioned the government against any further delay, setting a deadline of October 20 when the case will be heard next.
According to people aware of the matter, the notification to appoint justice Mridul is expected over the weekend.
The office of the chief justice of the Manipur high court had fallen vacant in February 2023, following the elevation of justice PV Sanjay Kumar to the Supreme Court. Justice Muralidaran has since been functioning as the acting chief justice of the high court.
A judicial order issued by a single-judge bench of justice Muralidaran on March 23 had become the trigger point for the ethnic clashes between the Meiteis and the Kukis in the northeastern state. Justice Muralidaran passed the controversial order for the Manipur government to consider including the Meitei community in the Scheduled Tribe (ST) list. The clashes started in Churachandpur district of Manipur on May 3 after a group of tribals took out a march to protest against justice Muralidaran’s order and the Meitei community’s demand to be included into the ST category.
Over two separate hearings in May on a clutch of petitions relating to the ethnic strife in Manipur, a Supreme Court bench, headed by the CJI, had also taken a grim view of justice Muralidaran’s order, saying that any direction on inclusion or otherwise of a community in a SC/ST list was beyond the remit of a court and that justice Muralidaran should have corrected his order after the top court cited the legal flaws. The bench, however, refrained from issuing any directive after it was informed that justice Muralidaran’s order has been appealed against before a division bench of the Manipur high court where the state government has also pressed for an extension of the time frame to take a decision on granting the ST status to the Meiteis by one year.
As on date, as many as 26 recommendations on transfer of judges from one high court to another remain pending with the Centre. During the hearing on October 9, the A-G had informed the court that 14 of them had been processed while the remaining were still being examined.
On Wednesday, the collegium also released a raft of other recommendations for the appointment of judges in the high courts of Delhi, Bombay, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Tripura and Gujarat.
Most of these recommendations relate to elevation of judicial officers, including a woman judicial officer who retired on September 30 and has now been recommended for the Delhi high court. The collegium referred to the judicial officer’s proven track record, merit and integrity, adding there is a need to ensure greater representation to women on the Bench to promote diversity and inclusion.
