New Delhi: The central government Friday issued two separate notifications, appointing Justice Ramesh Dhanuka as the Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court and Justice Sanjay V. Gangapurwala as the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court.
Both Justices Gangapurwala and Dhanuka belong to the Bombay High Court. Justice Dhanuka is the senior-most judge after Justice Gangapurwala there. They will be administered their oaths Saturday.
The Supreme Court Collegium, comprising three senior-most judges of the court — Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice K.M. Joseph — had on 19 April, 2023, recommended their appointments to the new posts.
The proposal of their names by the judges’ selection body was in addition to another recommendation in which the Collegium reiterated its November 2022 resolution to transfer Justice T. Raja, then acting Chief Justice of Madras High Court, to Rajasthan High Court where he would have joined as a puisne judge. The transfer was suggested in the “interest of justice”.
With his transfer order pending for over six months with the government, Justice Raja retired on 24 May.
ThePrint has learnt that the government processed notifications regarding Justices Gangapurwala and Dhanuka’s appointments only after Justice T. Raja demitted office.
While Justice Gangapurwala will have a year-long tenure as the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court, Justice Dhanuka will have an extremely short stint as a Chief Justice, as he retires on 30 May this year.
The Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) — a rulebook on judges’ appointments — mandates a judge from another HC to become the Chief Justice of a high court. Such a judge becomes suitable for the post only when his/her turn comes for being considered for such an appointment in their parent high court – the court where they take the oath as a judge.
However, the MoP makes an exception for a judge who has a year or less to retire when his/her turn comes to be elevated as a Chief Justice. It permits such a judge to become a regular Chief Justice of his or her parent high court in case a vacancy arises for the post while he/she is still in office.
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Transfer of Justice T. Raja
According to sources, who were in the know of the development, the central government was not convinced by the Collegium’s move to transfer Justice Raja out of the Madras High Court to Rajasthan, that, too, as a junior judge, while he could have been accommodated as a regular Chief Justice in his parent high court, which is Madras.
Justice T. Raja took over as the acting chief justice of Madras HC on 22 September last year, following the retirement of the then Chief Justice M.N. Bhandari.
Six days later, the SC Collegium — then comprising the five senior-most judges — proposed the transfer of Orissa High Court Chief Justice S. Muralidhar as Chief Justice of Madras HC.
However, the government never acted upon the said resolution on Justice Muralidhar’s transfer. Meanwhile, the SC Collegium of three judges recommended Justice T. Raja’s transfer in November last year. Then, he had six months left in office.
Sources quoted earlier told ThePrint that according to the MoP, he was eligible to become the Chief Justice of Madras HC itself.
However, for reasons unknown, they said, Justice Raja was moved out of his parent high court to Rajasthan as a junior judge, even though he was the senior-most in his parent high court and under consideration for elevation as Chief Justice.
When asked for reconsideration by Justice Raja, the Collegium on 19 April, 2023, rejected his representation and reiterated its decision to transfer him.
At the same time, the body recalled its earlier suggestion to nominate Justice Muralidhar as the new Chief Justice of Madras HC and, instead, resolved to appoint acting Chief Justice of Bombay High Court Justice Gangapurwala to that post.
The recommendation to elevate the second-most senior judge after Justice Gangapurwala, Justice Dhanuka, as a regular Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court, was also made.
Pointing to Justice Dhanuka’s recommendation, sources mentioned earlier said, “If Justice Dhanuka can be appointed for a few days as the Chief Justice, why not Justice Raja?”
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‘Lack of clarity in appointment’
Sources also recounted the Collegium’s decision from February this year to promote the acting Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh High Court, Justice Sabina, to highlight the lack of clarity in the appointment of an acting Chief Justice as a Chief Justice of the same high court, particularly when the judge concerned has a very short tenure.
Justice Sabina took over as the acting Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh High Court in January this year. In February, the Collegium asked the government to appoint her as a regular Chief Justice of the same high court.
However, the government did not approve due to her controversial past — her daughter had faced a CBI inquiry in a murder case — and returned the file to the Collegium.
“The Collegium never reverted to the government and in the meantime, Justice Sabina retired on 19 April,” one of the sources cited earlier told ThePrint.
Similarly, the Collegium recommended Justice Sonia Gokani, who was a judge of the Gujarat High Court, to become the Chief Justice of the same high court 19 days before she was due to retire.
While Justice Aravind Kumar, then the Chief Justice of Gujarat High Court, was recommended for elevation to the Supreme Court in January, Justice Gokani’s proposal was cleared by the SC Collegium on 6 February.
She took oath as the Chief Justice on 16 February and retired on 25 February.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)
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