The Chief Justice does not have any administrative jurisdiction over the judicial work of the Judges of the High Court and cannot transfer cases from one Bench/Judge to another Bench/Judge.

1. We regret that we cannot accept the contentions of the appellant as we find no error committed by Bakthavatsalam, J., in coming to the conclusion that a writ will not lie against the respondents herein for the redressal of his grievances. We may here, before referring to the facts of this case, pick up the thread from a Full Bench Judgment of this Court in the case of The Mayavaram Financial Corporation Ltd., Mayiladuthurai v. The Registrar of Chits, Pondicherry 2, in which this Court has held as follows:

“The Hon‘ble the Chief Justice has the inherent power to allocate the Judicial business of the High Court including who of the Judges should sit alone and who should constitute the Bench of two or more Judges. No litigant shall, upon such constitution of a Bench or allotment of a case to a particular Judge of the Court will have a right to question the jurisdiction of the Judges or the Judge hearing the case. No person can claim as a matter of right that his petition be heard ‘ by a single Judge or a Division Bench or a Particular single Judge or a particular Divisional Bench. No Judge or a Bench of Judges will assume Jurisdiction unless the case is allotted to him or them under the orders of the Honble the Chief Justice.”

The Full Bench has come to the said conclusion after tracing the source of powers of the Chief Justice in the Court including the Judges sitting alone or constituting a Bench.

2. The question herein however is who then a counsel, who developed some sort of reservation and feels that he has not been receiving justice in his case at the hands of a particular Judge or a Bench of Judges, can ask for transfer of his case to another Judge or a Bench of Judges of the Court or not? Our answer to this is a more firm “no” than in the case of a litigant who may have in some circumstances, good reasons to say that his case should not be heard by a particular Judge or a Bench of Judges. Bakthavatsalam, J. has elaborately dealt with the various principles and since we are of the opinion that the writ petition is not maintainable and hence the appeal is also not maintainable, we do not think it necessary to deal with every aspect of the matter. We however take notice of the events giving rise to this appeal and trace the happenings chronologically. We think, we would he able to pinpoint the issue.

3. The appellant herein, who is an Advocate of this Court, filed a batch of writ petitions in W.P. Nos. 2128 to 2131 of 1990 on behalf of five individuals against the Steel Authority of India. These writ petitions were allowed by S. Ramalingam, by a common order dated 17.4.1990. The Steel Authority of India preferred writ appeals, which were eventually listed for admission before a Bench consisting of the second and third respondents herein. The appellants clients, it is said, had entered caveat through the appellant. According to the appellant, the Bench admitted the said appeals in W.A. Nos.

601 to 604 of 1990 on 25.6.1990 without hearing him (the caveators’ Advocate) and without permitting him to make any submission but granted two weeks time to file counter affidavit in the miscellaneous petitions. Caveators filed counter-affidavit on 9.7.1990. The appellant then requested the Bench to hear him and dismiss the miscellaneous petitions. Ignoring the version of the appellant about what transpired in the course of the bearing of the miscellaneous petitions, we have before us, the order passed by the Bench in which it is stated,

“We heard both the sides. The common order of the learned single Judge, has worked out the financial burden to be cast on the appellants. The solvency of the Appellants is not certainly in issue. The financial burden would always be discharged towards the respondents if ultimately the verdict in the writ appeals should be in favour of the respondents. If the contrary position is to be countenanced, that may bring in other aspects of controversy. Hence, we grant stay as prayed for, in these appl