Calcutta HC lawyers may stop work to protest Delhi HC judge’s transfer

KOLKATA: Lawyers’ associations of the Calcutta high court decided on Monday to not attend court proceedings until the decision to transfer justice Dinesh Kumar Sharma of the Delhi high court to Kolkata is withdrawn, a senior member of one of the three associations said.

“The decision was taken at a meeting on Monday evening, three days after the bar associations wrote to the Chief Justice of India (CJI) that there are some serious complaints against justice Sharma. We will make a formal announcement before the media at 11am on Tuesday,” a senior member of the Calcutta High Court Bar Association said.

On March 29, the Calcutta High Court Bar Association, the Incorporated Law Society of Calcutta and the Bar Library Club jointly wrote to CJI Sanjiv Khanna against the recommendation to transfer justice Sharma citing some “serious complaints”.

Justice Sharma, who joined the Delhi Judicial Service in 1992 and was promoted to the Delhi Higher Judicial Service in 2003, took oath as a judge of the Delhi high court in February 2022.

The judiciary has been in the spotlight since a large amount of cash was reportedly discovered at justice Varma’s residence on March 14. Firefighters responding to a minor fire allegedly found bundles of cash in a storeroom, some of which were charred. Justice Varma and his wife were in Bhopal at the time of the incident.

Monday’s development comes amid an ongoing cease-work by Allahabad high court lawyers who have opposed the transfer of Delhi high court judge Yashwant Varma to Allahabad citing allegations of unaccounted cash being found at his Tughlaq Crescent residence when it caught fire on March 14. An inquiry has been ordered into this incident by the Supreme Court.

After the government’s notification on justice Varma’s transfer, CJI Khanna issued a mandate for the Allahabad high court chief justice Arun Bhansali not to assign any judicial work to justice Varma, pending the inquiry.