Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Wednesday distanced the government from the controversy over the transfer of Karnataka High Court’s senior-most judge Jayant M Patel, who resigned on Monday.

Patel was believed to have been unhappy about the transfer as by seniority, he was suppose to be made the High Court chief justice.

Prasad refused to comment on the resignation, but said the Centre had not received a recommendation from the Supreme Court collegium about transferring Patel, PTI reported. “I have no comments to offer except to say that we had not received any proposal on his transfer [from the collegium],” the law minister said on Wednesday.

Justice Patel, who had ordered an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the Ishrat Jahan encounter case in Gujarat, had told NDTV that he had resigned after he got to know about his transfer to the Allahabad High Court as he wanted to stay back in Bengaluru.

The proposed transfer, just 10 months before he was due to retire, would have denied him a chance to become a High Court chief justice or acting chief justice.