Discuss the constitutional and procedural mechanism for transfer of High Court judges in India. How adequate is it to address allegations of administrative misconduct by a sitting judge?

Article 222 empowers the President to transfer a judge from one High Court to another, in consultation with the Chief Justice of India [3]. Designed as an instrument of judicial administration, it is increasingly invoked as an informal disciplinary device — a gap the recent Rajasthan High Court episode exposes.

Constitutional framework

• Article 222(1): transfer by presidential warrant; 222(2) grants a compensatory allowance to the transferred judge, signalling that transfer is not meant to be punitive [3].
• No role for Parliament; removal alone requires the Article 124(4)/218 address, operationalised by the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968 [2].

Procedural mechanism

• Initiated by the Collegium — CJI plus four senior-most Supreme Court judges — a judicially evolved body with no textual basis, traced to the Judges Cases (1982–1999) [1].
• The Memorandum of Procedure requires eliciting the judge's response and consulting Chief Justices concerned; the executive then issues the warrant.
• Complaints of misconduct travel a separate track: the non-statutory in-house procedure, under which the CJI may constitute a three-member committee and, in grave cases, advise resignation [2].

Adequacy — merits

• Keeps discipline within the judiciary, insulating judges from executive pressure — the very concern for which the NJAC was struck down in 2015 [1].
• Faster than impeachment, under which no judge has ever been removed [2].

Adequacy — limitations

• Transfer punishes without a finding; reasons are rarely published, so it is neither fair to the judge nor visible to the public.
• The in-house procedure is unwritten, lacks statutory timelines, and its reports are seldom disclosed [2].
• Administrative misconduct — such as misuse of the master-of-roster power over case listing — falls short of "proved misbehaviour," leaving transfer as the only lever.
• Impending retirement can moot the entire process.

Transfer is thus a blunt substitute for accountability. Codifying the in-house procedure with fixed timelines, recording reasons in collegium resolutions, and revising the MoP would align the system with both judicial independence and the rule-of-law promise of Article 14.