NEW DELHI,24 Jan 2026 : The Congress on Saturday slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party for its governments punishing the judges by transfers or threats and said the latest example was transfer of Sambhal Chief Judicial Magistrate Vibhanshu Sudheer who was transferred from Agra only five months ago on September 18, 2025. His crime was that he had ordered registration of an FIR against police personnel linked to the Sambhal violence.
Congress media and publicity department head Pawan Khera urged the Supreme Court and the Allahabad High Court to take suo-motu cognizance of the arbitrary and deeply troubling transfer of Sudheer.
He told a Press conference here that the parties at times change their lawyers but the BJP is in habit of transferring the judges. He played a video in which a notorious goonda of Gujarat claims on the video that then Chief Minister Narendra Modi helped him by transferring the judges hearing his case to get him relief.
Khera said he can give any number of examples where the uncompromising judges were transferred by the BJP governments. He noted how Rajasthan commercial court judge Dinesh Kumar was transferred 200 km away from Jaipur to Beawar on his ruling asking an Adani-led firm to pay the dues of Rs 1400 crore to a state-owned company. He said in a similar fashion, Delhi High Court judge Justice S. Muralidhar was transferred in a midnight order in February 2020 to Punjab & Haryana High Court after he criticised Delhi Police under Home Minister Amit Shah for inaction in the 2020 Delhi riots.
Khera said the Sambhal transfer was not a routine administrative decision, but a “direct assault on judicial independence.”
He said what made the episode even more alarming was the initial move to appoint, as Sudheer’s replacement, the same judicial officer who had ordered the controversial survey of the Jama Masjid, which had preceded the Sambhal violence. That judge’s appointment was, however, reversed within 48 hours on protests by the lawyers there.
Khera said “The Sambhal episode itself lays bare the BJP government’s systematic effort to bend judicial administration to its political will, weaponise transfers as instruments of control and erode the independence of the judiciary in pursuit of its authoritarian agenda.”
The Congress held the press conference on Saaturday after lawyers earlier this week protested against Sudheer’s transfer, alleging that the move undermined judicial independence.
Sudheer had, on January 9, directed for the registration of an FIR against police personnel, including the then circle officer Anuj Chowdhury, in connection with the Sambhal violence case.
Khera described Sudheer’s transfer as “a calculated act of institutional vandalism and a direct assault on judicial independence.” Instead of allowing the judicial process to proceed, the BJP government ensured that the judge was swiftly removed, he said.
“The BJP has perfected a dangerous and cynical political formula — manufacture communal tension, unleash State violence, protect the perpetrators and then crush any institution that dares to demand accountability. Sambhal is not an exception, it is the latest victim of this deliberate and deeply-sinister strategy,” he alleged.
The communal violence in Sambhal was not spontaneous but a direct outcome of the BJP government’s politics of “hatred, polarisation and impunity”, Khera further claimed.
The CJM’s transfer is a textbook example of how the ruling party has “hijacked the judicial system” to serve its political interests, he alleged.
When the judiciary finally stepped in to uphold the rule of law, the BJP reacted with vengeance, the Congress leader claimed.
During the Sambhal violence, the police administration had resorted to indiscriminate and reckless firing, resulting in the deaths of protesters from the Muslim community, he said.
“This transfer is clearly punitive, intended to send a chilling message to the judiciary — act against the BJP’s police machinery and you will pay the price,” he said.
This is not an isolated incident but part of a deliberate, well-orchestrated plan to dismantle democratic checks and balances and ensure that no institution remains capable of questioning power, the Congress leader added.
