Jabalpur: An additional district judge has launched a sit-in agitation, `dharna', outside the Madhya Pradesh High Court here, protesting his allegedly wrongful transfers.


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Additional District Judge R K Sriwas's agitation entered the second day today.


He said in the last fifteen months, he was transferred four times.


High Court's Registrar General Mohammad F Anwar said that Sriwas's allegations were baseless, and never in the history of MP High Court a judge had staged such a protest.


The judge had breached judicial discipline and will face action, the Registrar General added.


"I am forced to sit on dharna to seek justice and protest non-compliance of transfer policy (for judicial officers)," Sriwas told reporters yesterday.


He said he started as a Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) in 2000, and was promoted as an Additional District Judge about three years ago.


In the last 15 months, he was transferred four times -- from Dhar to Shahdol, Shahdol to Sihora, Sihora to Jabalpur and now from Jabalpur to Neemuch -- he claimed.


Last year he had written to the Chief Justice of MP High Court and the Chief Justice of India (CJI) about rampant violation of Transfer Policy 2015 which allows a person to work at one place for a maximum period of three years, he said.


Despite this rule, several officials in the judicial service are working in one place for as long as five years, he alleged.


A press release from Registrar General Anwar today said that Sriwas's conduct was unbecoming of a judicial officer, and a disciplinary action had been initiated against him in March this year (in another matter) while a departmental inquiry against him was pending.