Former Chief Justice of India Uday Umesh Lalit has said that there was no reason to change the current system of appointment of judges through Collegium. 

Speaking on “Why Study Law: Social Duty and Legal Responsibility” at the inaugural session of the 12th edition of ThinkEdu Conclave on Thursday, Justice Lalit said that he never felt the ‘pulls’ and ‘pressures’ of the executive while serving as the Chief Justice of India. 

Justice Lalit said that the Chief Justice of a country, apart from being a judge, was also the administrative head of the Supreme Court. 
He elaborated by saying that apart from constituting benches and listing matters, the CJI had to look at the administrative aspect also, which included responsibilities as the head of the Supreme Court Collegium.
Stating that it was the CJI, who would call meetings and make proposals for the appointment of Judges, Justice Lalit said that on either of these two fronts, he was never subjected to any kind of instructions or even indirect suggestions from the executive at any juncture.
Speaking about his short tenure of 74 days as the 49th CJI, he said never in the history of the Supreme Court, more than two Constitution benches had ever sat together. 

As per Justice Lalit, since the Apex Court had a strength of 30 Judges during his tenure, he went by mathematical calculation and constituted six Constitution Benches having five Judges each.
At a time on one particular day, three Constitution benches were sitting together simultaneously, he added.
The former CJI said that he had absolutely no regrets in his tenure, as he delivered on all three promises that he had made. 
Speaking about the Covid-19 pandemic, he said disposal of cases took a back seat during that time as a matter that usually took three minutes for disposal in physical courts, in online mode, the time increased to 10 minutes due to communication gaps and defects.
The disposal of cases, which was earlier 60 on miscellaneous days such as Mondays and Fridays, had come down to almost 30-35 during the online mode. The Judges adapted themselves to the virtual mode and tried to make themselves more accessible during these trying times, added the former CJI. 
He said the gap between the filing of cases and their disposal increased and this led to shifting of priorities. 
Justice Lalit said that he focused on listing all matters, increasing the number of cases disposed of, and increasing the number of Constitution Benches. 

Talking about death sentences, Justice Lalit said that such matters could only get listed before three-Judge Benches. So when he constituted the Constitution Benches, he made sure each Constitution Bench had five Judges. 
In that way, the death sentence matters were listed before the Constitution Benches, he added.
Speaking about practical experience in the area of law, the former CJI said that study of law must not be confined to Universities and colleges alone, but must be open to the masses and the societal apparatus. 
He laid emphasis on introducing such internships, where students worked with the rural population, holding interactions, and understanding their problems and challenges.
The former CJI said mandatory internships should be introduced for law students to work in rural areas with rural population.
Regarding his decision on switching over from the Bar to the Bench, Justice Lalit said that although money was important, after a point, it lost significance in life and one ultimately needed something which gave them satisfaction. 
He concluded by saying that he was playing his third innings currently, as a visiting professor in Law Colleges. The former CJI said this was his way of giving something back to the society.

The Chief Justice of India UU Lalit conducted a full court meeting for taking a call on the current system of listing of cases along with ways for faster disposal of matters. The meeting was conducted after getting feedback from all quarters of the legal fraternity.

The main agenda for the meeting was the the new case listing system that was introduced after CJI Lalit took over . The other issues pertained to the administrative side of the Supreme Court.

The full court meeting was part of the last quarter meeting to discuss fund allocation and expansion of the lawyers’ chambers along with approving the list of holidays for the next year.

The listing of cases matter was taken as the bench headed by Justice SK Kaul had remarked that the new system does not give adequate time to take up matters fixed for hearing.

Justice Abhay Oka, who also was part of the same bench had said that many cases cannot be taken up as there are several matters within the span of the ‘Afternoon’ session.

Soon after, the Chief Justice clarified that he is aware that all judges were on the same page when it comes to listing of the cases.

He added that “It is true that a new style of listing is naturally bound to have some problems.”

He further said that there is another side of the new listing system due to which court has been able to dispose of more than 5,200 matters as against fresh filing, which was just about 1,135 matters.

The CJI said that by the new system, the arrears have come down by such a big margin,which is a sign of great beginning.

The current pendency in the Supreme Court stands at 70,000 cases.

The National Investigation Agency on Monday sought the urgent listing of its appeal in the Supreme Court against default bail granted to lawyer Sudha Bhardwaj in the Bhima Koregaon case. The agency had moved court on December 3, two days after the Bombay High Court granted her default bail.

Appearing on behalf of the NIA, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said since the Bombay High Court order would come into effect on December 8, the agency’s challenge to the order should be heard as soon as possible before it becomes pointless.

The Bombay High Court had granted bail to Bhima Koregaon accused Sudha Bhardwaj, who has been in jail since 2018, on December 1 and also asked her to approach the NIA court by December 8 to finalise modalities about her release and bail conditions.

The High Court had refused default bail to the other 8 accused saying that they had not applied for default bail when that right had accrued to them.The Bombay High Court’s Justices S.S. Shinde and N.J. Jamadar had directed the production of Bhardwaj before the NIA trial court for the court to process the modalities and terms required to be followed on December 8.

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Lawyer-activist Sudha Bhardwaj was arrested from Faridabad in August 2018 by the Maharashtra Police in the Bhima Koregaon case. Father Stan Swamy, another civil society activist, who had been arrested in the case along with Bhardwaj died in July this year while his bail petition was being heard by the High Court.

Pryagraj (ILNS): Various grievances have landed with the India Legal team with regards to the listing of cases in the Allahabad High Court during the persisting situation of the COVID-19 pandemic. The main contention in all such grievances is that urgent matters/writ petitions are not being listed, even after the Supreme Court has directed the parties to move to the High Court for relief.

Counsels regularly appearing before the Allahabad High Court informed us that even cases filed with an urgent application are being listed at least after a month, with the excuse of sanitization processes. India Legal was also informed that files were being kept in isolation for a long period of time. We have also been informed that even urgent bail applications are taking more than a month to get listed. Even after the matter gets listed, advocates are not given a link to the video conferencing a day prior to the hearing; they are usually sent a few minutes before the hearing. 

It has also been informed to us that the fresh applications that are being moved before the High Court are facing difficulty in getting listed for over than one and-a-half month. However, it has also been pointed out that some matters get listed in only 2 to 4 days. Advocates are also not being informed about when their matters are being listed.

Several difficulties are being faced by advocates since the reopening of the Allahabad High Court, whether it be in e-filing, listing of urgent matters, appearance through video conferencing or a notice of listing of cases to advocates, etc.

Earlier, various letters had also been written by the High Court Bar Association and individual advocates to Chief Justice Govind Mathur, highlighting the grievance over the functioning of the court during the pandemic and a lack of sanitization, but the situation has not improved.

-India Legal Bureau