Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra met the four dissenting Supreme Court judges – Justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Kurien Joseph and Madan Lokur – and three other judges on Tuesday morning in an effort to resolve the crisis that has hit the judiciary. The three other judges have not yet been identified.
The four justices had held an unprecedented press conference on Friday and voiced their reservations regarding the manner in which the chief justice had been assigning cases to benches.
The meeting between the chief justice and the justices was brief and took place before the day’s proceedings began, sources told Scroll.in. They are expected to meet on Wednesday as well to continue the talks.
Meanwhile, Attorney General KK Venugopal, who had indicated that the rift in the Supreme Court has been resolved, said on Tuesday that it has not yet been settled. “Let us hope things will be fully settled within two-three days,” he said, according to PTI. Supreme Court Bar Association President Vikas Singh said that he expected it to be resolved by the end of the week.
The judicial crisis
On Friday, Justice J Chelameswar, who is lower in seniority only to Misra, had said the Supreme Court owed a responsibility to the institution and the nation. Justices Chelameswar, Gogoi, Joseph and Lokur had 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 on Monday, Bar Council of India Chairperson Manan Kumar Mishra had said the rift in the Supreme Court had been “laid to rest”, and that all court rooms were functioning normally.
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