The speculation surrounding the resignations has given the media a free hand to read whatever it chooses to in the move of the two judges. So, it did not stop at the suggestion that the resignations were a result of the resentment against the transfer policy. Immediately, the political class took over and stories linking the sensitive Girish Vyas case with the resignations made it to the front pages.

Justice Y S Jahagirdar reacted angrily saying he did not need to respond to press reports though he denied his resignation had anything to do with any pressure or any particular case. Justice A Y Sakhare remained incommunicado through the controversy, as did the Chief Justice M B Shah.

Having saidthis, the question must be asked: Why indeed did two young judges, who had 18 years of a promising career ahead of them -- with the prospect of making it to the seniormost position in the Supreme Court also decide to resign and that too just months before their confirmation?

The judges have, perhaps, taken some of their friends into confidence about the likely transfers to the High Court benches at Nagpur and Aurangabad. The two apparently gave in to family pressures and decided to quit the bench rather than leave the metro. If that comes as a shock to the uninitiated, ordinary litigant, who holds the judiciary in awe, so be it.

The judges seem to have displayed a sense of disillusionment. What one gathers from all the discussion is that the judges came to a point when they thought it wasn't worth the sacrifice. If the Bombay High Court is one of the premier high courts of the country, then Mumbai is the Mecca for the professional achiever. So, the judges, who had a clear idea that they could betransferred to any HC in the country, threw up their hands when it came to going to the Nagpur or Aurangabad bench of the same august court.

So, for the uninitiated again, there is a hierarchy in high courts, professionally speaking. And it is more satisfying to preside over a court in Mumbai than, say, in Aurangabad. And, second, that judgeship has lost its sheen, despite the trappings and all the chatter about judicial activism.

More and more good lawyers are politely turning down offers of judgeship, quite stoutly quoting their reluctance to make financial sacrifices and live a socially `constricting' life. So, in Mumbai, observers of the bar say, it takes a highly persuasive chief justice to get a good lawyer to agree to take up the post.

So deep-rooted is the disillusionment that offers of judgeship are being looked upon with some suspicion, as if the offer is made as a `second choice'. That lack of any elevating role to the judge per se is eating into the credibility of the system.

As a sequel,questions are being asked about the fate of the judges. Will they return to practice at the same bar now that they have resigned before confirmation? What happens to the lofty tradition that judges never returned to the bar, except of a higher court?

Also lost in the cat-and-mouse game of an impatient press pointing fingers at the insular judiciary are the undercurrents of court politics: a vicious letter targetting the chief justice and a senior judge was circulating for some days in the bar just before these resignations. Allegations on the style of functioning of the chief justice were made in the letter, whose origin is still unidentified. While the credibility of anonymous pamphlets is highly questionable, there is no doubt that it has caused a degree of dissonance within the legal circles and the litigating public. This, perhaps, is also a sign of the changing, more questioning times that the judiciary has to live with. Of course, all this can be blamed on an erosion of values, etc., etc. But thelast crisis the Bombay High Court witnessed was in 1995 when the Chief Justice himself went down quite controversially and another judge resigned without assigning anything more than `personal reasons.' And in 1990, an alert bar made five judges leave for `digressions' worse than just a love affair.

If the two resignations this week mean anything, it is this: That judgeships are taken up and surrendered more casually today than in the past, and that the more the judiciary resists transparency, the more it will aid the erosion of its own credibility.

(Pranati Mehra is a senior reporter with The Indian Express)