Madras High Court Chief Justice Vijaya Kamlesh Tahilramani has resigned from the post after the Supreme Court Collegium declined her request to reconsider her transfer to Meghalaya. She has tendered her resignation to President Ram Nath Kovind and sent a copy of it to Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi on Friday night, official sources said. The collegium, headed by Chief Justice Gogoi, had recommended transfer of Justice Tahilramani, who was elevated as the Madras High Court’s Chief Justice on 8 August last year, to the Meghalaya High Court.
The collegium had recommended her transfer on August 28, after which she had made a representation requesting it to reconsider the proposal. Ms Justice Vijaya Kamlesh Tahilramani is the senior most High Court judge in the country has decided to quit after the Supreme Court Collegium (comprising top five judges) transferred her from the chartered High Court to a relatively small High Court of Meghalaya. She made her decision public on Friday night at a dinner hosted by six Madras High Court judges who were made permanent recently. Thanking the puisne judges for their cooperation ever since she took over as the Chief Justice on August 12 last year, Justice Tahilramani told them that she had discharged her duty without any fear or favour right from the time she assumed office as a judge of the Bombay High Court in June 2001.
Though she was due to retire from service on October two, 2020, the sudden transfer to a much smaller High Court has upset her, she said at the dinner meet. Refusing to accede her request for reconsideration of the transfer, the Supreme Court said “the Collegium has carefully gone through the representation and taken into consideration all relevant factors.’
‘On reconsideration, the Collegium is of the considered view that it is not possible to accede to her request. The Collegium, accordingly, reiterates its recommendation dated August 28 for transfer of Ms Justice Tahilramani to Meghalaya High Court,” it added.
