Disposed of over 5,000 cases in one year: Ex-Madras HC chief justice Tahilramani

Vijaya K Tahilramani, who resigned as Madras High Court chief justice after being transferred to Meghalaya, on Friday presented a report card of her performance, saying she disposed of over 5,000 cases during her year-long tenure here.

Speaking at a farewell function organised by the Madras Bar Association, the former judge who hails from Maharashtra lavished praise on Chennai city, saying she had earlier decided to settle down here because of its climate and "excellent" infrastructure.

In her first public appearance since sending the resignation on September 6, she said due to the cooperation of the entire Bar she was able to dispose of at least 70-80 cases a day and a total of 5,040 cases throughout her tenure as the chief justice.

She had kept away from court till her resignation was accepted recently. The Supreme Court Collegium later appointed Vineeth Kothari as the acting chief justice.

Justice Tahilramani resigned days after the collegium declined her request for reconsideration of her transfer to Meghalaya High Court.

The transfer of Justice Tahilramani had snowballed into a major controversy with lawyers here as well as in her home state of Maharashtra coming out in protest against the collegium's decision.

On September 12, the apex court had issued a statement, saying that each of the recommendations for transfer of chief justices and judges of various high courts was based on "cogent reasons".

Justice Tahilramani was elevated as the Madras High Court chief justice on August 8 last year.

In her speech Friday, Justice Tahilramani said she has decided to get settled in Chennai rather than going back to Mumbai.

"I got slowly attached to Chennai in the last one year because of its climate, less pollution and excellent infrastructure with roads connected throughout the state. My husband and I decided to settle down here and so we bought a flat".

"Chennai has always been the place (of transit) whenever my family travels to Tirupati and also to several places we have travelled down the southern districts", she recalled.

"However, fate had different things in store," she said apparently referring to the recent developments, adding she would now think again on settling down in Chennai.

The former chief justice was lauded by the entire Bar, including its president A R L Sundaresan, who said she had even written to the governments of Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu stating that she was not interested in taking up post-retirement assignments.

Senior Judge of the Madras High Court S Manikumar, who was also present, said the former chief justice was very cooperative and took prompt decisions on all requests raised by the judges.

Several other senior judges and members of bar association were present.

Justice Tahilramani was appointed as a judge of the Bombay High Court on June 26, 2001. She was to due to retire on October 2, 2020.

While holding office as the acting chief justice of the Bombay High Court, she had in May 2017 upheld the conviction and life imprisonment of 11 people in the Bilkis Bano gang-rape case, which was transferred to Maharashtra from Gujarat by the top court.