The Supreme Court has introduced a subject-wise roster system for allocation of cases to benches.
The Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra has made the new roster in public domain and will come into effect fromFebruary 5. A bench headed by the 'master of the roster', CJI, will hear PILs listed before the apex court.
The notification has given the description of matters that would be allocated to the benches headed by the CJI, justices Chelameswar, Gogoi, Lokur, Joseph, A K Sikri, S A Bobde, R K Agrawal, N V Ramana, Arun Mishra, A K Goel and R F Nariman.
The names of these 12 judges are in the order of their seniority.
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The move comes two weeks after four senior-most judges of the top court made public their anguish and concern over Chief Justice Dipak Misra’s actions which they felt were affecting the functioning of the judicial delivery system and the independence of the Judiciary.
The dissenting judges had demanded a panel of future CJIs to suggest an institutional mechanism to allot cases.Justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, MB Lokur and Kurian Joseph made the proposal after consulting the future CJIs — Justices SA Bobde, NV Ramana, Uday U Lalit and DY Chandrachud, reported The Tribune.
Their main grievance that triggered the dissent and the press conference against the CJI was that the master of the roster has been assigning politically sensitive cases to junior colleagues, bypassing them.
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In an unprecedented press conference, the four judges Justices Jasti Chelameshwar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan Lokur and Kurian Joseph said 'democracy will not survive' until the judiciary is preserved.
"There have been instances where case having far-reaching consequences for the nation and the institution had been assigned by the Chief Justice of this court selectively to the particular case or the composition thereof," the strong-worded letter read sent by the judges to the CJI read.
