Lawyers abstain from work protesting transfer of Justice Muralidhar from Delhi HC

Delhi High Court lawyers abstained from work on Thursday in protest against the transfer of Justice S Muralidhar to the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The Delhi High Court Bar Association (DHCBA) also expressed shock over the transfer of the judge.

"All the members of the bar cooperated in the protest as the said transfer of Justice S Muralidhar is a rarest of rare case and the majesty of our institution is at stake," DHCBA executive member, advocate Naginder Benipal, said.

In an emergent executive committee meeting on Wednesday, the bar association had requested its members to abstain from work on Thursday as a mark of protest. The Supreme Court collegium, headed by Chief Justice of India S A Bobde, in a meeting on February 12, had recommended transfer of Justice Muralidhar to the Punjab and Haryana High Court. Justice Muralidhar was number three in the Delhi High Court, his parent HC.

In its resolution, the bar association said, "Such transfers are not only detrimental to our noble institution but also tend to erode and dislodge the faith of the common litigant in the justice dispensation system. Such transfers also impede free and fair delivery of justice by the bench."

Justice Muralidhar was also part of the high court bench which had first ordered decriminalisation of IPC section 377 to give freedom of sexual expression to the LGBT community. A controversy had erupted in 2018 when Justice Muralidhar had quashed the transit remand order by a trial court and directed release of rights activist Gautam Navlakha from house arrest in the Koregaon Bhima violence case.

In October 2018, a division bench headed by Justice Muralidhar had also convicted 16 former policemen of Uttar Pradesh in the Hashimpura massacre case. He was also heading the bench which in the same year had awarded life imprisonment to Congress leader Sajjan Kumar and sent him to jail in one of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case.

Besides Justice Muralidhar, the collegium has also recommended transfer of Bombay High Court Judge Ranjit V More to the Meghalaya High Court. Justice Ravi Vijayakumar Malimath, who is the Karnataka High Court judge, has also been recommended for transfer to the Uttarakhand High Court by the collegium.

Justice Muralidhar began his law practice in Chennai in September 1984 and he shifted to the Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court in 1987. He was active as a lawyer for the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee and was its member for two terms. His pro bono work included the cases for the victims of the Bhopal Gas tragedy and those displaced by dams on the Narmada river.