Justice Jasti Chelameswar, one of the four Supreme Court judges who held a press conference on January 12, on Wednesday told The Economic Times that attempts were being made to resolve differences in the judiciary. Chelameswar had on January 12 said that the judges had failed to convince Chief Justice Dipak Misra to protect the Supreme Court as an institution.
“It [the problem] has to be resolved soon,” Chelameswar told The Economic Times on Wednesday. “There are larger issues. We want them to be addressed. That is why we went to the press breaking all conventions.”
The four dissenting judges – Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph – had raised issues including the assignment of cases to specific benches, and the lack of a mechanism to deal with complaints against the chief justice. In a letter to Misra, the judges asked the chief justice to assign all important cases in the order of seniority.
On Wednesday, The Economic Times quoted an unidentified source in the Supreme Court as saying that “hectic efforts” were underway to resolve the matters raised in the judges’ press conference, but that “the differences are far from resolved.” Efforts at reconciliation were stalled on Wednesday on account of Chelameswar’s sinus ailment, which forced him to stay away from court work, the daily said.
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