MP HC judge says SC judge got him moved out of Delhi

He also said that he had written to Chief Justice of India S H Kapadia seeking the reason for his transfer,and also asked him to reconsider the shift.

Besides,he said he had mentioned that his wife was critically ill,and he needed to be in Delhi for her treatment. But his request was rejected. Aggarwal said that his wife subsequently passed away and he could not attend to her because of his displacement from Delhi to Madhya Pradesh.

“I have no hesitation in saying,and say it with utmost humility and respect at my command,that one of my senior colleagues,then a judge in Delhi High Court,with whom I had serious differences on various issues,on making it to the Supreme Court saw to it that I was sent out of Delhi High Court by using his close proximity which he has the knack of developing and which he developed …with the head of judiciary,” Aggarwal said in his speech,a copy of which is with The Indian Express.

“Transfer,I feel,is a tool in the hands of the concerned authorities to tame inconvenient judges. I am a victim of such misuse. I am conscious of the fact that our constitution envisages transfer of a judge from one high court to another but I very strongly feel that it is time now to revisit this power as it is being misused in the name of as vague a term as ‘public interest’,” he said.

Speaking to The Indian Express over the phone later,the outgoing judge said that the transfer policy for the senior judiciary needs to be urgently amended and exceptions need to be made sometimes. “Since I have been a victim of this,I thought I must speak on the issue publicly on my last day in office,” Aggarwal said.

“Was I not entitled to know the public interest I had to serve in Madhya Pradesh that I was not serving in Delhi? Above all,is a judge,the holder of constitutional office,not entitled even to an ordinary courtesy of a hearing from the head of the judiciary,” Aggarwal said in his speech. “If a judge does not deserve to remain in one court,he equally does not deserve to sit in another court. By all means remove such a judge,ridicule him,impeach him but for God’s sake do not tarnish his image without telling him the sin he is supposed to have committed and without giving him hearing.”