Madras High Court Chief Justice Tahilramani decides to quit

[dropcap]C[/dropcap]HIEF Justice of Madras High Court Justice Vijaya Kamlesh Tahilramani has preferred to resign following her transfer to Meghalaya High Court.

The Supreme Court Collegium had recently proposed to swap chief justices of two High Courts – Meghalaya and Madras. The Madras High Court is one of the oldest and the fourth largest in the country whereas the Meghalaya High Court is among the smallest.

Justice Tahilramani reportedly made her decision public on September 6 night during a dinner hosted at the Tamil Nadu State Judicial Academy by six Madras High Court judges who were made permanent recently.

She is one of the senior most judges and one of the two women High Court chief justices.  She was the third woman to assume the charge of Chief Justice at the Madras High Court.

From being the Chief Justice of a court that has a sanctioned strength of 75 judges, Justice Tahilramani was chosen to head a High Court with just three judges.

Instead of accepting her obviously humiliating transfer, Justice Tahilramani has chosen to resign.

In the beginning of her career, she practiced as a lawyer in both the Bombay High Court and in City Civil and Sessions courts in Mumbai. As a Government Pleaderand Public Prosecutor on the appellate side, she handled multiple cases ranging from matters that fell under the National Security Act to cases regarding the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic substances act.

She became Acting Chief Justice of Bombay High Court in December 2017. As the acting Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court, Justice Thaliramani in May 2017 upheld the conviction of 11 people for life imprisonment in the Bilkis Bano gang-rape case which was transferred from Gujarat to Maharashtra by the Supreme Court.

As a judge of Bombay High Court, Justice Thaliramani laid down guidelines regarding pregnant women prisoners.

She rejected the plea of a 1993 serial blasts convict to be released on parole to attend to his ailing wife in one of her last judgements for the Bombay High Court. “Consideration of sympathy for him cannot be permitted to overshadow the consideration regarding security of the society,” the division bench of the acting Chief Justice and another judge had observed.