Kolkata: With the Centre on Tuesday clearing the transfer of Delhi High Court judge Justice Dinesh Kumar Sharma, three Bar associations have written to Calcutta High Court Chief Justice, informing that neither will they attend the swearing-in ceremony of the judge nor appear in his courtroom for proceedings.
A notification by the Law Ministry, issued on Tuesday, read that the President, after consultation with the Chief Justice of India (CJI), was pleased to transfer Justice DK Sharma to Calcutta High Court and directed the judge to assume office.
Meanwhile, a memorandum signed by Bar Library Club, Bar Association and Incorporated Law Society of the Calcutta High Court, was sent to the Chief Justice (CJ) TS Sivagnanam of the High Court. It read that it is “unfortunate” that notwithstanding their representations, such transfer was made. The Bar said that their conscience would not permit any of the members to participate in the swearing-in ceremony.
The letter requested the CJ, who is the Master of the Roster, to consider their plea of not assigning Justice DK Sharma any judicial work. “In the event, any determination is assigned to the Learned Judge, there is a possibility that our members may not appear before the Learned Judge and/or may take such further decision in this regard as would be subsequently decided in the respective general body meetings of our Three-wings of the Bar,” it read.
A memorandum was also sent to the office of the Advocate General (AG), seeking support in the protest. The AG was also requested not to attend the swearing-in ceremony and also consider not appearing before the judge concerned as a mark of solidarity with all three wings of the Bar.
On Tuesday, the two wings of the Bar had boycotted proceedings on Tuesday, stating that the present situation falls under the “rarest of rare” category since the Calcutta High Court is being “compelled to accept a judge facing serious allegations of impropriety”.
On March 29, the three wings of the Bar had submitted a memorandum with the CJI Sanjiv Khanna, urging reconsideration and withdrawal of the transfer recommendation of Justice DK Sharma to Calcutta High Court. An anonymous complaint letter, attached with the memorandum, accused Justice Sharma of keeping about 40-45 original side “high-stake” civil matters “part-heard”.
The memorandum read: “Being the oldest Constitutional Temple of the Country, the High Court at Calcutta conceivably does not deserve to have a transferred Judge with either a questionable image or a short stint… Our High Court has previously experienced short stints of various transferred judges who though were sent for “better administration of justice” but in effect, became a dumping ground in the past.”