Don’t assign judicial work to new judge, lawyers tell Calcutta high court

KOLKATA: As the union government notified the transfer of Delhi high court’s justice Dinesh Kumar Sharma on Tuesday, the three lawyers associations at the Calcutta high court have asked the high court not to allocate any judicial work to the judge, saying that it was possible that lawyers may not appear before him.

“The Calcutta High Court Bar Association, the Incorporated Law Society of Calcutta and the Bar Library Club held a meeting after the transfer notice was published in the Gazette of India on Tuesday afternoon. We adopted a resolution and wrote to the chief justice of the high court that we will not attend any hearing at justice Sharma’s court and skip his swearing-in-ceremony as well,” a senior member of the Bar Association told HT.

The letter, a copy of which was seen by HT, also requested chief justice TS Sivagnanam to “not assign any judicial work to the concerned judge”.

“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 respectively general body meetings of our three wings of the Bar,” the letter said.

The three bodies also wrote to the state’s advocate general and the Centre’s deputy solicitor general seeking their cooperation in carrying out the resolutions.

The three associations jointly wrote to CJI Sanjiv Khanna on March 29 that some “serious complaints” against justice Sharma were brought to the notice of the CJI’s office in October and November, 2024. The lawyers also attached copies of two anonymous e-mails that brought allegations against justice Sharma.

The 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 residence.