The Union Ministry of Law and Justice has notified the transfer of Madhya Pradesh High Court judge Justice Atul Sreedharan to the Allahabad High Court.
The transfer comes days the Supreme Court Collegium acceded to the government request to not transfer Justice Sreedharan to Chhattisgarh High Court as recommended earlier.
Pursuant to the government's request, the Collegium on October 14 recommended the judge's transfer to Allahabad instead.
This has now been cleared by the government.
In a notification issued on October 18, the Union government said,
"In exercise of the power conferred by clause (1) of Article 222 of the Constitution of India, the President, after consultation with the Chief Justice of India, is pleased to transfer Shri Justice Atul Sreedharan, Judge, Madhya Pradesh High Court, to be a Judge of Allahabad High Court and to direct him to assume charge of his office in the Allahabad High Court."
The judge was part of the High Court Collegium in Madhya Pradesh and would have been in a similar position in Chhattisgarh High Court. However, in Allahabad, he will be at number seven in seniority.
The transfer comes just few months after Justice Sreedharan was transferred back to his parent High Court in Madhya Pradesh from the Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court.
Justice Sreedharan had been transferred from Madhya Pradesh to Jammu and Kashmir in April 2023 after the judge himself had sought the transfer on grounds of his daughter entering law practice in Madhya Pradesh. He was transferred back to Madhya Pradesh in March this year.
Justice Sreedharan joined the chamber of Senior Advocate Gopal Subramanium in 1992 at Delhi and assisted him till 1997 in several civil and criminal matters before the Supreme Court, Delhi High Court, and trial courts.
He practiced independently in Delhi from 1997 to 2000 before shifting to Indore in 2001, where he continued independent practice and worked closely with Senior Advocate Satyendra Kumar Vyas.
He also served as Panel Advocate and Government Advocate for the State of Madhya Pradesh before the Indore Bench of the High Court.
He was appointed as an additional judge of the Madhya Pradesh High Court on April 7, 2016, and was made a permanent judge on March 17, 2018.
[Read Notification]