Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra on Thursday met the four senior-most Supreme Court judges who last week held an unprecedented press conference to object to the way cases were being allocated to various benches according to several reports. Misra met Justices J Chelameswar Ranjan Gogoi Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph before court proceedings began at 10.30 am. Reports are unclear on how long the meeting lasted or who attended. A PTI report said the judges and Misra met for around 15 minutes and that no one else attended. NDTV said the meeting went on for 30 minutes and four others judges AK Sikri NV Ramana DY Chandrachud and UU Lalit were also present. NDTV quoted sources saying Thursday s meeting was cordial and that more are likely to take place next week.The meeting came a day after according to unnamed sources speaking to The Indian Express the dissenting judges finalised a proposal for Misra on how the Supreme Court roster should function. The judges proposed a rational orderly and transparent system to allocate cases to different benches of the Supreme Court the report said.This is the second time the judges have met this week. A meeting scheduled for Wednesday did not take place as Justice Chelameswar was unwell.The judicial crisisOn January 12 the four top judges had said that the Supreme Court owed a responsibility to the institution and the nation. Justices Chelameswar Gogoi Joseph and Lokur said they were speaking out now so that democracy survives as their attempts to get the chief justice of India to address a judicial crisis had gone unanswered. The judges were referring to Misra s allocation of cases in the Supreme Court.Earlier this week the Bar Council of India Chairperson Manan Kumar Mishra said the rift in the Supreme Court was laid to rest and that all court rooms were functioning normally.
Written by Seema Chishti | New Delhi | Updated: January 18 2018 7:18 am The Supreme Court. (Express Photo by Tashi Tobgyal) The four Supreme Court judges who last week made public their grievances against Chief Justice Dipak Misra met late Wednesday evening with two other Supreme Court judges and finalised a proposal which they hope will break the current impasse sources told The Indian Express. The proposal expected to be handed over to the CJI Thursday deals with formalising a rational orderly and transparent system to allocate cases to different benches of the Supreme Court. Its details were not available but sources said the idea is to insulate the roster from allegations of favour. Also Read: Four judges who criticised CJI Dipak Misra not on Bench that will hear 7 key matters This meeting came at the end of a day when Court Number 2 of the Supreme Court did not function due to the unavailability of Justice J Chelameswar who took the day off. Result: a meeting which had been decided on Tuesday morning between the four judges (Justices Chelameswar Ranjan Gogoi Madan Lokur and Kurian Joseph) and Chief Justice Misra could not be held. Instead a meeting took place of the four judges at the residence of Justice Madan Lokur. Also present were Justice U U Lalit and Justice D Y Chandrachud. This proposal to the Chief Justice who at the behest of three other colleagues had taken the initiative to invite the four senior judges to his chamber on Tuesday morning concerns a reformed system the judges feel needs to be put in place to dispel questions over the manner in which certain cases are being allocated. If the CJI is open to consider this central point sources said it is believed that the four judges are willing to take the discussion forward. Express Explained | How the complaint by four SC judges goes beyond the judicial sphere Sources said the CJI had so far not made any proposal of his own. Earlier in the evening around 4.15 pm members of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) had met the CJI and discussed a range of housekeeping issues including a suggestion to have a roster of allotment of matters like in the Delhi High Court. Interestingly Justice Misra was Chief in the Delhi HC when he was elevated to the apex court. Justices Chelameswar Ranjan Gogoi Madan Lokur and Kurian Joseph held a press conference last Friday in New Delhi (Express Photo/Abhinav Saha) The Supreme Court unlike the case in smaller countries constitutes several benches which hear matters and there has been a practice of cases being assigned to benches as per their expertise. For example judges regularly dealing with criminal matters are expected to get criminal cases. And in the formation of Constitution benches of five judges or more the five seniormost judges were usually included. A system looking at randomised allocation of cases would also take away any charge of selecting a particular bench. Meanwhile Wednesday s weekly lunch of the full Supreme Court (all judges) was not a complete one as three judges Justices Chelameswar Sharad Bobde and Adarsh Goel were absent. Before the meeting Justice Gogoi dropped by Justice Chelameswar s home to look him up. For all the latest India News download Indian Express App Tags: Dipak Misra supreme court Kk c aggarwalJan 19 2018 at 12:08 pmChanging roster partially or completely or not changing the roster has no use as far as it pertains to restoration of prestige and credibility of all concerned. The best would be that CJI plus all four judges resign. This will put an end to entire controversy with no aspersions cast on anybody.(0)(0) Reply SShamimJan 18 2018 at 2:21 pmI don t understand that why should the integrity of such an ins ution be left at the mercy and idiosyncracy of the judges. Judges are also mortals and fallible........ why don t we have some certain and functional system to deal with such contingencies............The vox populi is being manipulated and engineered even though the people know nothing whatsoever about what actually happened at the supreme court...... the opinion of an individual who otherwise seemingly sport sound intellect is determined and shaped by the first news report he or she comes across...... can someone enlighten us with the truth ?(1)(0) Reply Rag JawaharJan 18 2018 at 1:10 pmMaster of Roster Award goes to Dipak Misra. Very firm CJI seen so far by the country. He should send all the 4 judges to Jail like his predecessor did for Judge Karnan.(1)(17) Reply Shashichandra DesaiJan 18 2018 at 1:10 pmCJI the nation is behind you.Any proposal should be approved unanimously by 20 judges and not by only 4 rebels.Obtain proposal from remaining 16 also.Seniority should not be only criteria but merit should be priority.(2)(8) Reply Krishna MurthyJan 18 2018 at 12:37 pmIt seems that the rebel Judges have their own conclusions on certain cases and they wanted to pronounce judgement even without any court formalities. The meeting between a letter pad party leader with extra territorial loyalty and one of the rebel Judges in a hurried manner only augments the suspicion. Under any circumstances if the so called rebel Judges allowed to implement their intentions it will be a black day of Indian Judiciary.(3)(14) ReplyShashichandra DesaiJan 18 2018 at 1:00 pmFour rebel judges thought that tey would get public sympathy but they were deceived.Public at large was shocked at their irresponsible behaviour.I hope CJI would also include a code if ethics and no compliance would be immediate dismissal.Judges at the supreme court should be on contract and selection should be on merit and not on seniority.I think time has come to put order in judiciary and a watch dog composed of eminent persons and retired judges and supreme court lawyers is a dire necessity today.Enough of these politically biassed irresponsible judges who were promoted on seniority but not ion merit other countries when yoo are not happy resign first then only you can open your mouth against your superiors. I understand it was supposed to be coup detat to put Chelameswar as CJI as he was to retire in June.(1)(12) ReplyJJohnJan 18 2018 at 1:48 pm1)Make it compulsory that if any case against any of the Judges in India come up that particular judge alone should hear the case and pronounce the judgement. 2) Make it mandatory that cases should be allotted to Judges as per their demand for cases and as per their interest in the cases . Give freedom for Judges and advocates to choose which case to be heard in which bench.(1)(1) Load More Comments
NEW DELHI: The four senior most Supreme Court judges today virtually revolted against Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra who has been a part of several key and sensitive verdicts including that of confirming the death sentence of Mumbai blasts convict Yakub Memon during a midnight hearing. Before being elevated as the 45th CJI attempts were made to stall his elevation but Justice Misra took oath as the head of the judiciary on August 28 last year. Misra who has a 13 month-long tenure till October 2 has been having a tough time in dealing with his colleagues and often reports have surfaced that there have been serious disagreements between him and other senior judges of the five-member collegium and Justice J Chelameswar has often made his displeasure public. Not only from within but activist lawyers have also been critical of his functioning which was manifested in a medical college matter when the CJI and advocate Prashant Bhushan had a heated exchange of words in a packed courtroom. CJI Misra had to hurridely constitute a five-judge bench of his choice after a two-judge bench headed by Justice Chelameswar had ordered setting up of a five-judge bench of senior most judges to hear the petitions by an NGO and a lawyer levelling serious allegations of bribes being taken in the names of judges to get favourable order in a medical college case. The CJI-headed bench had overturned Justice Chelameswar s order and asserted that Chief Justice of India is the master of the roster . The vexatious Ayodhya land title dispute in the Babri Masjid case which is being heard by a bench headed by CJI Misra has also witnessed war of words between Justice Misra and senior lawyers like Kapil Sibal and Rajeev Dhavan. Besides these controversies Justice Misra one of the most eloquent judges in the apex court has been part of several key verdicts including the December 16 gangrape and murder case in which four men were sent to gallows. He headed the bench which in an unprecedented pre-dawn hearing in 2015 when the doors of the apex court were opened at 1 AM rejected last-ditch efforts by Memon to get his execution stayed. He is also hearing several crucial issues such as SEBI- Sahara payment row BCCI reforms 1984 anti-Sikh riots matters related to real estate majors. Justice Misra who was elevated to the apex court bench on October 10 2011 from the Delhi High Court where he was the Chief Justice has already presided over several key cases and verdicts. He headed the apex court bench which upheld the constitutional validity of 156-year-old penal laws on defamation holding that the reputation of one cannot be allowed to be crucified at the altar of the other s right of free speech . Justice Misra had also mandated the playing of the national anthem before the screening of films in cinema halls. The order was recently modified and the top court made it optional for cinema halls to play the national anthem before screening of a film. Another significant judgement by Justice Misra was one directing states and union territories to upload FIRs on websites within 24 hours of their registration to enable the accused and others to file appropriate pleas in the courts for redress. Justice Misra who was enrolled as an advocate in 1977 has practised in constitutional civil criminal revenue service and sales tax matters in the Orissa High Court and Tribunals before being elevated to the High Court bench. He was appointed Additional Judge of the Orissa High Court in January 1996 after which he was transferred to the Madhya Pradesh High Court in March 1997. In 2009 Justice Misra became the Chief Justice of the Patna High Court and assumed charge as the Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court in May 2010. He was appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court of India on October 10 2011.
Reports had suggested that the Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra was scheduled to address the media at 2 pm on Friday in response to the allegations levelled against him by four senior Supreme Court judges earlier in the day. The four judges had also released a letter that they had written to the chief justice of India in which they claim that the norms of selecting benches to hear cases had not been followed in a way that was damaging the reputation of the court.
NEW DELHI: Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra on Sunday separately met high-level delegations of top two lawyers bodies -- BCI and SCBA -- and assured them that the crisis erupting after the revolt by the four seniormost judges against him would be sorted out soon and congeniality would prevail. A seven-member Bar Council India (BCI) panel led by its chairman Manan Kumar Mishra had a 50-minute meeting with the CJI after hectic parleys with several apex court judges with whom they shared the views of the apex body of the Bar regulating the lawyers. Coming out of the official residence of the CJI at 5 Krishna Menon Marg here the BCI chairman told reporters that the meeting with the head of the judiciary was held in a congenial atmosphere and that Justice Misra assured that everything would be sorted out soon. We met CJI in a congenial atmosphere and he said everything will be sorted out soon Mishra said. He also said that before meeting the CJI the panel also discussed the crisis plaguing the higher judiciary with several other judges including three of the four seniormost judges who had on Friday held an unprecedented press conference. The BCI chairman said the panel met Justices J Chelameswar M B Lokur and Kurian Joseph and they also assured that everything would be sorted out. He did not mention whether the panel had any talks with Justice Ranjan Gogoi who was not in the city. Mishra said they would hold a press conference tomorrow to apprise about the BCI s day-long parleys with the judges of the apex court in the wake of the crisis. Earlier Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president Vikas Singh met the CJI and handed over a resolution of the apex court lawyers body on the crisis. The senior lawyer said that he handed over a copy of the SCBA resolution to the CJI who assured him that he would look into it. I met the CJI and handed over a copy of the resolution. He said that he would look into it and ensure there was congeniality in the Supreme Court at the earliest Singh told PTI after his 15-minute meeting with the CJI. Singh expressed hope that all judges of the apex court would give consideration to its resolution in which the association asked for a full court discussion to defuse the present crisis plaguing the higher judiciary. Hours before the hectic parleys ended with the meeting between the CJI and the BCI panel a coordination committee of the Delhi district court bar associations termed as unfortunate the presser by four seniormost judges of the Supreme Court and said it would take to the streets if the crisis was not resolved within 10 days. Several judges of the apex court also met each other over the ongoing crisis during the day. Two top court judges -- Justices S A Bobde and L Nageswara Rao -- met Justice J Chelameswar who had led the four judges in the unprecedented press conference at his official residence here sources said. The four apex court judges -- justices Chelameswar Gogoi Lokur and Joseph -- had raised a litany of problems including the assigning of cases in the apex court and said there were certain issues afflicting the country s highest court. The BCI panel also had a brief meeting with Justice Arun Mishra who has been in the focus for hearing PILs seeking a probe into the death of special CBI judge B H Loya. Loya who was dealing with the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case had died of cardiac arrest three years ago. The four judges had questioned the allocation of Loya s case to Justice Mishra bypassing senior judges. The sources said that the full court of the Supreme Court will in all possibility deliberate upon the situation arising out of the controversial presser of its four seniormost judges who virtually revolted against the CJI tomorrow. Full court mechanism is one in which deliberations by all the judges of the top court takes place in-house and not in the open. They said the full court deliberation has become necessary as the four judges who went public with their grievances in all probability did not have the support of the other apex court judges. The Supreme Court at present has 25 judges including the Chief Justice. The sanctioned strength of the apex court is 31 including the CJI. It is for sure that they (judges) will have to go for a full court tomorrow. In full court the CJI has the majority that is why these four judges have not demanded full court deliberation on their grievances one of the sources said. They cited a report appearing in the media that one of the judges who is in the line of ascension to the post of the CJI has also expressed his reservation about the presser held on Friday last by the four judges.
Media reports indicate that the Chief Justice of India (CJI) has reached out to his four dissenting colleagues and held a 15-minute meeting on Tuesday to sort out their differences . They will meet again. This is a welcome step. It will be interesting to note the outcome of the meetings given the seriousness of the charge that the rebel judges had brought against the CJI. It is difficult to see how an amicable solution may still emerge. If the judges fall in line their dissent will be deemed pointless and an exercise in vanity that did little else other than robbing the Supreme Court of its veneer of respectability. If they don t we are in for a protracted crisis. However we must not get ahead of the story. For now the heart-to-heart chat is slated to resume on Wednesday. At this stage it is still unclear whether the four rebel judges have achieved their purpose in approaching the media. What is already clear though is that public perception about the Judiciary and the land s highest court has taken a severe beating. File image of CJI Dipak Misra. PTI In breaking the code and bringing their grievances against CJI Dipak Misra out in the open judges Jasti Chelameswar Ranjan Gogoi Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph have driven home the truth about the adage why judges should never be heard outside the court. For the last few days since that extraordinary press conference at Justice Chelameswar s residence media activists lawyers activist-lawyers NGOs sanctimonious eminent citizens members of the Lutyens ecosystem Opposition politicians and even the RSS have engaged in a free-for-all. As an institution the Supreme Court is being hauled over the coals doubts are being raised over everything including the constitution of benches to verdicts. The denigration has been swift tragic and irreversible. For instance a headline in Tuesday s edition of a national daily read: Four judges who criticised CJI Dipak Misra not on Bench that will hear 7 key matters . It is possible to draw an inference from the headline that there is a correlation between the dissenting judges conduct and their absence from key matters . The implications of such an inference go further. To recall the point of friction that led four judges to attack the CJI in media was that important cases are being assigned to junior judges and select benches bypassing senior ones. As The Times of India had noted in a report the discontent over not being assigned important cases that get space in newspapers and TV channels was simmering for a long time even before Misra took over the top post in August last year. Though a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court had earlier ruled that the CJI is the master of the roster and reserves the right to constitute benches the dissenting judges had alleged through a letter to the CJI that the convention of recognising the privilege of the chief justice to form the roster and assign cases to different members/benches of the court is a convention devised for a disciplined and efficient transaction of business of the court but not a recognition of any superior authority legal or factual of the chief justice over his colleagues. It is too well-settled in jurisprudence that the chief justice is only the first among equals nothing more or nothing less. This is where the charges fail the logic test. If the CJI is merely the first among equals and possesses no superior authority legal or factual over his colleagues then where does the question of seniority or junior judges arise? The Supreme Court has 25 seasoned judges on its roster. These are men/women of high competence eminence and experience. No one can walk his or her way into becoming a judge at the apex court without requisite qualifications. If that is so why are the dissenting judges putting up seniority as a benchmark while demanding to adjudicate key cases? A lawyer Lakshminarayanan Venkatachari writes in his column for The Times of India: If every judge is equal to the other then where is the question of seniority? The verdict is that of the Supreme Court not of individual judges. Further Supreme Court is not comprised by judicial greenhorns but by seasoned judges of constitutional courts who have put in a decade or more in the Judiciary. This fallacy has now paved the way for media pressure groups and politicians to raise questions against the competence of the apex court. The Supreme Court has 21 other judges in addition to the four rebel ones. How does it matter who adjudicates over the case? Questioning the constitution of benches is tantamount to raising doubts over the fairness of the verdict and no judicial institution (much less the highest court of the land) may operate under that trust deficit. When we consider media reports that super sensitive cases have been given to junior SC judges for the last 20 years under different CJIs then the bone of contention that led the four judges to take such an unprecedented step makes even less sense. As Dhananjay Mahapatra writes in The Times of India: TOI tracked 15 super sensitive cases of national importance in the last two decades including those relating to Bofors Rajiv Gandhi assassination LK Advani s trial in Babri Masjid demolition Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter Best Bakery and the case that changed how the BCCI is run. All of them have one thing in common they were assigned by the then CJIs not to any of the four senior-most judges of the SC but to select benches headed by junior judges. This not only points to the fact that seniority has never been an entitlement in the apex court it also raises troublesome questions about the motive behind the four judges pressure tactics. Let s revisit the letter. There have been instances where cases having far-reaching consequences for the nation and the institution had been assigned by the chief justice of this court selectively to the benches of their preferences without any rational basis for such assignment. This must be guarded against at all costs they wrote. In voicing their lack of trust in the way CJI constitutes benches or performs administrative functions the dissenting judges have made an implication that the departures from convention have been carried out with a motive to fix the outcomes. This is the most damaging charge against the CJI that not only raises doubts over his integrity but also suggests that their colleagues are amenable to influence. If media reports are to be believed the customary Monday morning meeting among the judges (the first since the public allegations) saw stormy scenes. The Times of India quoted a source in claiming that a junior judge accused the rebels of bringing the institution into disrepute. Why did you go to the press without even informing other judges about the grievance of assigning of cases by the CJI to select benches? By going to the press you wanted to tell the world that only senior judges are competent to handle cases and junior judges are not. You have killed the institution its reputation and maligned every single judge the junior judge reportedly said. The gravity of the charges makes it difficult for an amicable solution to arise. It is difficult to see how there will be a reconciliation between the rebels and other judges when entire reputations are at stake. As Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes in The Indian Express There is no half-way house when it comes to guilt or innocence. The judge s press conference and the artfully evasive letter seem to suggest there is. But now that they have gone public they have to follow through on the seriousness of the charge; otherwise this is just pressure tactics. It is dangerous pressure tactics because one implication will be that any pro-government decision on a bench allotted by the chief justice will now have the imprimatur of doubt over it. The nature of the gambit is such that the dissenting judges must take their dissent to its logical conclusion. Any attempts at papering over the crisis or shutting the eyelids closely and hoping the dust storm will subside won t work.
Senior lawyer and Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president Vikas Singh has alleged that activists under the banner of Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms (CJAR) were trying to scandalise the judiciary by levelling false charges against Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra in connection with a medical college bribery case. He has said the complainants need to be charged with criminal contempt. He also said that conversations between middlemen cannot attribute any wrongdoing on part of the judges hearing the matter. In a letter to Justice J Chelameswar Justice Ranjan Gogoi Justice MB Lokur Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice AK Sikri the senior advocate in his personal capacity condemned CJAR s conduct. It came two days after the CJAR had filed a complaint against them accusing the CJI of misconduct in a case related to the Prasad Education Trust. Singh who had represented the Medical Council of India (MCI) in these cases said in his letter that he was quite confident that there was no wrongdoing by the apex court while dealing with them. CJAR convenor and senior advocate Prashant Bhushan had held a press conference on Tuesday in which he had informed that the body has handed over a complaint against the CJI to the five senior-most Supreme Court judges Chelameswar Gogoi Lokur Joseph and Sikri. File image of Dipak Misra. PTI Meanwhile Jasti Chelameswar the second senior most Supreme Court judge has said attempts are underway to resolve the disputes but admitted there are larger problems that need to be addressed . Speaking to The Economic Times Chelameswar said Attempts are underway to resolve the issues. There are larger problems. We want them to be addressed he said. It has to be resolved soon. We are not concerned with individual cases he said. However high-level sources from the Supreme Court were quoted as saying that not much headway has been made on resolving the issues that were raised. The Chief Justice of India has reached out to his brother judges on a goodwill-building exercise. However the issue is far from being resolved. There have been preliminary talks on the issues raised at the press conference but not much headway has been made in it. There are many larger issues which have to be sorted out a source told The Economic Times. Read the full letter below: What is the Medical Council of India scam One of the key points of dispute between the four senior rebel judges and CJI Dipak Misra with the quartet accusing the chief justice of selectively assigning cases to benches of preference the Medical Council of India bribery scam as reported by Scroll was unearthed by the CBI in September last year. The bureau had alleged a conspiracy to obtain judicial orders from various high courts and the Supreme Court in favour of the Lucknow-based organisation the Prasad Education Trust. The MCI earlier had denied permission to a medical college which belonged to the trust to operate the college. A middleman had then assured the trust that permissions will be granted through the judiciary and money was also paid by interested parties to facilitate this. The CBI said Rs two crore was recovered during the raids. This also led to the arrest of former Odisha High Court judge IM Quddusi and four others. Quddusi was later released on bail. The transcripts originally recorded by the CBI are of conversations that took place between Quddusi BP Yadav of the Prasad Education Trust and alleged middleman Vishwanath Agarwala. As reported by The Times of India these transcripts resulted in an PIL being filed in the Supreme Court which was mentioned before a bench led by Justice Chelameswar with the latter referring it to a five-judge bench. However Misra who has the final say in deciding which case goes to which bench assigned the case to a bench led by Justice AK Sikri. An identical petition was again filed in the apex court and Justice Chelameswar again earmarked it for a five-judge bench. However the order was rescinded by a Constitution Bench headed by Misra who asserted his prerogative as the Master of the Roster The Times of India report mentioned. It said that the four rebel judges have cited this as an example of Misra using his powers selectively to assign cases to benches of preference . In his letter however Vikas Singh said there were 10 matters of medical colleges listed before the court presided by CJI on 18 September the date in question and similar orders were passed in five of these. Orders in nine matters are available on the Supreme Court website the letter further added. With inputs from PTI
No comments:
Post a Comment