April 6, 2018

Petition says that the decision of allocation of cases should be done, not unilaterally by the Chief Justice of India, but collectively by the Collegium.

On Friday, former Law Minister & Senior Adv. Shanti Bhushan moved the Apex Court for a declaration that the authority of the Chief Justice of India as ‘master of roster’ shouldn't be reduced to an absolute, singular & arbitrary power.

Mr. Bhushan quoted Supreme Court Rules of 2013, which highlight transparency in the administrative function of the CJI to allocate cases to the various Benches of judges in the SC.

The petition said that the term ‘Chief Justice of India’ in this context should be interpreted as the collegium of the Senior Judges. Thus, the decision of allocation of cases should be done, not unilaterally by the CJI, but collectively by the Collegium.

The petition refers to the incident where a 5-judge Constitution Bench presided by CJI Dipak Misra was convened on short notice recently to declare the CJI as the ‘master of roster.’ The Constitution Bench at that time effectively nullified an order passed by a Bench led by the Supreme Court’s number 2 Judge, Justice J. Chelameswar, only the previous day.

Justice Jasti Chelameswar’s order wanted a Bench of the senior-most judges to hear petitions for an independent probe into the Lucknow medical college scam.

The issue related to allegations that the college authorities wanted to bribe Supreme Court Judges. The medical college case was heard by a Bench led by the CJI.

Subsequently on 12th January, 4 senior-most judges - Justices Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B. Lokur & Kurian Joseph - went public against the selective allocation of cases by CJI Misra to “preferred Benches.”

In his petition, Mr. Bhushan asked the top Court to “clarify the administrative authority of the CJI as the master of roster & for the laying down of the procedure & principles to be followed in preparing the roster for allocation of cases.”

“Master of roster can't be unguided & unbridled discretionary power, exercised arbitrarily by the Chief Justice of India by hand-picking benches of select Judges or by assigning cases to particular Judges,” the petition said.

It also suggests “the collective opinion of a collegium of Senior Judges is much safer than the opinion of the Chief Justice alone.”

Mr. Bhushan argued that international best practices are based on objective rules for case allocation that respect collegiality, the relevance of seniority, equality of the Justices, fairness of work distribution, expertise & transparency.

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