Justice Sabina had been serving as Acting Chief Justice of the high court since January 21 this year. She had previously served in the same capacity for four weeks between May and June last year.
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IN an unprecedented turn of events, the Union government has rendered the recommendation of the Supreme Court Collegium infructuous regarding the appointment of Justice Sabina as the Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court. She retired on Tuesday as Acting Chief Justice from that high court.
On February 7 this year, the collegium, which comprises Chief Justice of India Dr D.Y. Chandrachud and Justices S.K. Kaul and K.M. Joseph, had recommended the appointment of Justice Sabina as Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court. In the absence of the appointment of a Chief Justice for the high court by the Union government, Justice Sabina had been the Acting Chief Justice there by virtue of being the senior-most judge on the high court Bench since January 21 this year. She had also served as Acting Chief Justice of the high court from May 25 till June 22 last year.
If appointed immediately upon the collegium’s resolution, she would have had a tenure as Chief Justice of slightly over two months before attaining the age of retirement, that is, 62 years.
Justice Sabina had been serving at the Himachal Pradesh High Court since October 8, 2021. She hails from the Punjab and Haryana High Court, where she was appointed as permanent judge on February 23, 2010.
She found herself embroiled in controversy when her daughter Kalyani was accused of murdering her alleged boyfriend, lawyer and national level-shooter Sukhmanpreet Singh alias Sippy Sidhu in Chandigarh in 2015. Justice Sabina was serving at the Punjab and Haryana High Court when the incident took place.
She was transferred to the Rajasthan High Court on April 7, 2016. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which had taken over the investigation of the case from the Chandigarh police in January 2016, registered a fresh first information report a week after Justice Sabina’s transfer order was issued.
In June last year, the CBI arrested the accused daughter of Justice Sabina almost seven years after Sidhu’s murder. She was in the midst of her first stint as Acting Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court at that time.
Sidhu’s mother had told The Wire that Justice Sabina’s family had played a part in delaying the investigation.
