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.

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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 crisis

On 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.