1150 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
existing situation to be taken into account and permits also the future experience to become the guide of Parliament in altering the provision.
Something was said with regard to article 128. It was contended that we ought not to pamper our judges too much. All that I would say is that, the question with regard to the salaries of judges is not now subject to scrutiny. The House has already passed a certain scale of salary for existing judges and a certain scale of salary for future judges. The only question that we are called upon to consider is when a person is appointed as a judge of a High Court of a particular State, should it be permissible for the Government to transfer him from that Court to a High Court in any other State? If so, should this transfer be accompanied by some kind of pecuniary allowance which would compensate him for the monetary loss that he might have to sustain by reason of the transfer ? The Drafting Committee felt that since all the High Courts so far as the appointment of judges is concerned form now a central subject, it was desirable to treat all the judges of the High Courts throughout India as forming one single cadre like the I.C.S. and that they should be liable to be transferred from one High Court to another. If such power was not reserved to the Centre, the administration of justice might become a very difficult matter. It might be necessary that one judge may be transferred from one High Court to another in order to strengthen the High Court elsewhere by importing better talent which may not be locally available. Secondly, it might be desirable to import a new Chief Justice to a High Court because it might be desirable to have a man who is unaffected by local politics and local jealousies. We thought therefore that the power to transfer should be placed in the hands of the Central Government.
We also took into account the fact that this power of transfer of judges from one High Court to another may be abused. A Provincial Government might like to transfer a particular judge from its High Court because that judge had become very inconvenient to the Provincial Government by the particular attitude that he had taken with regard to certain judicial matters, or that he had made a nuisance of himself by giving decisions which the Provincial Government did not like. We have taken care that in effecting these transfers, no such considerations ought to prevail. Transfers ought to take place only on the ground of convenience of the general administration. Consequently, we have introduced a provision that such transfers shall take place in consultation with the Chief Justice of India who can be trusted to advise the Government in a manner which is not affected by local or personal prejudices.