Justice Sandeep Mehta asks CJI to replace Rajasthan’s acting chief justice

Supreme Court judge Justice Sandeep Mehta has written three letters this month to Chief Justice of India Surya Kant asking for the immediate transfer of Rajasthan High Court Acting Chief Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma and the appointment of a full-time chief justice from another state. The letters, dated 2, 10 and 17 August and marked to other members of the collegium, were reported on Wednesday by The Hindu, The Indian Express, ThePrint and The Week.

Justice Sharma is due to retire on 26 September. He has held the acting post for more than ten months. Mehta, who comes from the same high court, told ThePrint he had sent the letters and that “the ball is in their court.” He declined to add a public comment beyond that.

The 2 August letter is the longest. Mehta wrote of a “grim and disturbing scenario” in his parent court. He said Sharma had shown a lack of leadership and conduct unbecoming of the head of the institution. He reminded the Chief Justice that he had been asking since early 2026 for a regular chief justice from outside Rajasthan. He described cases being pulled off other rosters and placed before Sharma “without any justifiable cause,” and said the resulting orders raised questions about the integrity of the process. He also recorded that Sharma was transferred from Rajasthan to Patna with effect from 1 January 2022, and that he had been told the transfer note said Sharma should not be considered for return.

The 17 August letter uses harder words: “rampant nepotism and favouritism.” Mehta wrote that it was “beyond comprehension” why “such a long rope” had been given to a judge whose request for repatriation the collegium had refused in March 2023. He referred to a complaint by sitting judge Justice Uma Shankar Vyas about alleged vindictive conduct toward Vyas’s wife, a senior officer in the district judiciary. Other reported allegations include pressure over Lok Adalat appointments and efforts to push unsuitable names for elevation.

A sitting Supreme Court judge putting those sentences on paper, and copying the collegium, is rare. The collegium system already struggles with transfers that look like rewards or punishments. An acting chief justice who controls the roster can decide which bench hears which dispute. That power is the core of Mehta’s complaint. If the allegation of selective listing is even partly right, it is an administrative problem that no later judgment can clean up, because the cases have already been heard by the bench that received them.

The calendar adds pressure. Sharma leaves in a month. Appointing a chief justice from another high court in that window means the collegium has to meet, recommend a name and wait for the government to issue the warrant. If nothing happens, Rajasthan will greet October with a new acting arrangement and the same unanswered letters.

Mehta framed the cost as institutional, not personal. “Continued ignorance of the request, in my opinion, is wholly against the interest of the institution.” That sentence now sits with four other judges who make transfer decisions. Their next list of recommendations will show whether they treated it as a private grievance or as a file that required a name from outside the state.