Additional district judge stages sit-in outside MP High Court

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

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.