Above: Supreme Court

A plethora of suggestions were put forth by senior counsels in a PIL filed before the Supreme Court which has challenged the existing roster practice of allocation of cases by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra.

Even before hearings began, there was high drama in court. Hours after CJI Dipak Misra assured the counsels that he would look into the listing of the PIL, the causelist of the apex court showed that it has been listed for hearing before a bench headed by Justice A K Sikri (also comprising Justice Ashok Bhushan).

Earlier in the day, the petitioner mentioned it before a bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar, the senior-most judge after the CJI. However, Justice Chelameswar declined to pay heed to the request and the lawyer moved the CJI’s bench which assured him that the matter would be looked into.

Now this bench will hear it tomorrow. The four judges – Justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, M B Lokur and Kurian Joseph – who had held the unprecedented ‪January 12 presser, are all senior to Justice Sikri, the senior on this bench.

When the plea was filed, the senior lawyer had also written a letter to the secretary general of the apex court, stating that the matter should not be listed before a bench that includes the CJI. In the letter, he had also said it would be appropriate that the petition be listed before three senior-most judges of the top court for allocating it before an appropriate bench. In the petition, the CJI has been named as one of the respondents along with the registrar of the Supreme Court.

In his PIL, the lawyer has stated that the “master of roster” cannot be unguided and have unbridled discretionary power, exercised arbitrarily by the CJI by hand-picking benches of select judges or by assigning cases to particular judges. The petition has said that CJI’s authority as the master of roster is “not an absolute, arbitrary, singular power that is vested in the chief justice alone and which may be exercised with his sole discretion.” It has said that such an authority should be exercised by the CJI in consultation with the senior judges of the Supreme Court in keeping with the various pronouncement of this court.

Today, senior counsel Dushyant Dave began his submissions by referring to Article 145. He emphasised the procedure and practice of the court. He said that under article 124, the Supreme Court is not just the Chief Justice. All the justices in totality constitute Supreme Court.

He also said that rules do not confer any special powers upon the CJI for allocation of matters. “The power is vested upon the registrar, in fact,” he said.

At this the bench said: “Will it be workable if the CJI is not allowed to allocate matters? It will bring work to standstill.” To which Dave bowed down and replied: “It is an international practice now, where all the judges of a particular court sit and allocate the matter collectively.” He also pointed out the business of affairs in a government department where the propositions are kept before the cabinet.

Said he: “There should be no human involvement when it comes to allocation and setting rosters. It should be computerised and be picked by computer allocation, automatically and randomly. Hypothetically, tomorrow if the CJI says ‘I will hear all the matters and only give petty matters to brother judges,’ can it be allowed?”

He asked where is the need for the CJI to pick matters and allocate to brother judges. He said the roster should be prepared by the registrar upon the direction of the CJI. He said that this was not any other service matter, so it should be taken seriously. It requires judicial intervention, he said.

He said that administration and judicial side of the court should be distinguished. Paragraph 14 of the writ petition lays down the basis upon which the registry has violated its own guidelines. It’s not a case which can be thrown away at the admission stage, he said.

He said that the power to regulate has been been given to the entire court, the CJI alone being mast of the roster. This is not consistent with the provision laid down in constitution,” said another senior lawyer.

At this, Attorney General K K Venugopal said: “There must be someone’s application of mind in order to constitute benches. How many pending cases are there, how many judges etc. Who will be the one who is to preside? Someone has to take a decision, it’s a great responsibility. This responsibility cannot be distributed amongst multiple individuals.

“It is essential that there must be one person and if it’s essential to have one person then it has to be the CJI,” Venugopal added.

One senior lawyer said: “Our argument is, it’s safer to have it decided by the Collegium. What’s the problem in having all the judges sitting collectively and deciding it?”

—India Legal Bureau