New Delhi: Supreme Court Justice Sandeep Mehta has demanded immediate appointment of a full-time Chief Justice for the Rajasthan High Court, his parent high court, a move that has drawn the response from the Chief Justice of India (CJI).
Through three letters written between 3 and 27 August, Justice Mehta detailed multiple reasons, including alleged misuse of master of the roster power by the present acting chief justice who is due to demit office next month.
Justice S.P. Sharma has been officiating as the acting Chief Justice of the Rajasthan High Court since October last year. Under established convention, a judge cannot be appointed as the chief justice of his/her parent high court. However, if the tenure of such a judge is three months, then the Supreme Court collegium can appoint them as full-time Chief Justice there.
Even though Justice Sharma has a month left for superannuation, sources in the Supreme Court told ThePrint that the CJI-led collegium did not confirm the judge as a full-time Chief Justice of the Rajasthan High Court due to Justice Mehta’s complaints.
On 6 August, the appointment body cleared chief justices for four high courts—Patna, Calcutta, Bombay, and Punjab and Haryana. Despite Justice Mehta’s serious concerns about Justice Sharma’s working and functioning in Rajasthan, no decision was taken to appoint a chief justice there.
ThePrint, which accessed Justice Mehta’s letters, reached out to the Supreme Court judge. He refused comment but confirmed having sent letters to the CJI and four senior judges, i.e., the collegium that appoints chief justices. “I have expressed my concerns to the honorable judges, the ball is in their court,” he said.
Justice Sharma was also reached via call and text message, but there was no response till the publishing of the report.
The first letter is the most extensive one where Justice Mehta mentions how Justice Sharma was transferred out of Rajasthan High Court to Patna on 1 January 2022. This recommendation, the judge said, he was told, was with a specific note that he shall not be considered for repatriation to Rajasthan in the future.
In 2023, Justice Sharma requested the then Supreme Court collegium led by CJI D.Y. Chandrachud to repatriate him to Rajasthan, citing health conditions. The collegium resolution, also available online, specifically recorded that Justice Sharma cannot be repatriated to Rajasthan. However, due to his medical conditions and unavailability of adequate facilities for this treatment in Patna, the collegium chose to transfer him to the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
In May last year, however, the collegium repatriated Justice Sharma to the Rajasthan High Court. Since the retirement of Justice S. Shriram as the Chief Justice, Justice Sharma has been holding the position of acting Chief Justice in the Rajasthan High Court.
Later in the night, CJI Surya Kant said that he and the other members of the collegium are already working on the appointment of Chief Justices in the remaining High Courts.
Noting that he had already taken note of Justice Mehta’s concerns, the CJI said allegations against a sitting judge must be dealt with strictly through the established institutional mechanism.
CJI Kant maintained that the contents of the letters cannot be adjudicated in the public domain and that the judge must be given a fair opportunity to place his response before any conclusion is reached. “The fact that allegations have been made, therefore, cannot by itself be treated as a finding against the judge.”
The matter, he added, is being examined at the appropriate level and the process will take into account the material placed by Justice Mehta as well as the response of Justice Sharma.
Any decision regarding the continuation, transfer or other administrative action concerning the acting Chief Justice would be taken by the competent institutional authority after due consideration of the material. The CJI also emphasised that the Supreme Court cannot allow individual complaints concerning judges to be determined through competing claims in the media.
‘Fervent appeals’
In his letter, Justice Mehta mentions that since the beginning of 2026 he has made “fervent appeals” for the appointment of a regular chief justice in Rajasthan. It even talks about him bringing to the CJI’s notice several instances where Justice Sharma, by exercising powers or the master of the roster, withdrew cases from other benches and listed them before his own bench.
The letter also points to Justice Sharma humiliating judicial officers owing to his personal vendetta and gives a glimpse of how the acting chief justice attempted to designate a large number of his favored advocates as senior without proper scrutiny and adopting any uniform criterion.
The 2 August letter takes into strong exception about the state government funding a three-day lawyers’ conference in Jaipur between 31 July and 1 August. It claims that Justice Sharma had “somehow persuaded the state to shell out almost Rs 80 lakh for this conference”.
Strikingly, on Justice Sharma’s instructions, the judges serving in Jodhpur–the principal seat of Rajasthan High Court–were nominated to sit in Jaipur for these three days, as a result of which no courts functioned in Jodhpur. Not only this, almost 20 to 22 district judges were also asked to be present at the conference for two whole working days.
Sources quoted above also told ThePrint that pursuant to Justice Mehta’s letters, the collegium has sought an explanation from Justice Sharma. Though he submitted a response, but it did not convince many collegium members, they said.
The second letter, written on 10 August, gave two specific instances of cases where Justice Sharma had transferred cases to his court in breach of the existing rules.
The first related to a matter against the Udaipur Development Authority. This case was listed in the Jodhpur bench that was headed by Justice Sharma. However, the judge transferred the case to the Jaipur bench, in complete disregard of his own judgement that said a matter within the jurisdiction of the principal seat – which is Jodhpur – cannot be transferred to Jaipur.
The second case was about mining. According to the Justice Mehta’s letter, a special appeal was filed in this case, challenging a March 2025 order of a single-judge bench, which was sitting in criminal jurisdiction. As the order was passed in criminal jurisdiction, under Section 482 of the erstwhile Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC)—which relates to quashing of an FIR —no special appeal is maintainable against it, Justice Mehta’s letter stated.
Yet, a special appeal filed belatedly was listed Justice Sharma’s bench, which condoned the delay, issued notice on the appeal and stayed the single-judge’s order. The letter suggested that the lawyers in both cases were closely associated with Justice Sharma when he practiced as lawyer.
Justice Mehta’s last letter, written 17 August, reiterated the judge’s concern about the HC functioning without a full-time Chief Justice.
“It is beyond comprehension as to why such a long rope has been given to Mr Justice S.P. Sharma in spite of the specific noting in the transfer recommendation dated 28 March 2023, referred to in my letter dated 2 August, 2026 that his prayer for repatriation to Rajasthan High Court was not being accepted. The aforesaid observation, I presume, was made looking into the past conduct of Mr Justice S.P. Sharma while he was serving as a puisne judge of the Rajasthan High Court,” the judge noted in his third letter, stating that if a thorough inquiry is made, more instances of favouritism by Justice Sharma will come to light.
“I, therefore, implore your goodself and the members of the collegium to take an early decision recommending a senior judge from any other High Court to be the Chief Justice of the Rajasthan High Court with immediate effect,” the letter stated.
Justice Mehta’s 17 August letter to the CJI also alleges that Justice Sharma victimised judicial officers of the state. To support his claim, the judge annexed a copy of messages shared in a WhatsApp group of high court judges. The chat, from Justice Uma Shankar Vyas, a sitting HC judge, described Justice Sharma’s vindictive action toward the former’s wife, a district judicial officer in Rajasthan.
Sources in the Rajasthan High Court told ThePrint that Justice Vyas, along with three more judges, was recently transferred from Jaipur to Jodhpur.
This is an updated version of the report.
(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)
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