The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a plea that sought to frame rules for the constitution of benches and allocation of cases to judges in the top court as well as High Courts, Bar and Bench reported. Refusing to lay down guidelines, it said the Chief Justice of India is “the first among equals”.
“The Constitution puts a CJI at the helm of affairs of the top court,” the court said, according to the Hindustan Times. “CJI is the head of institution, [and] authority vested with him is to ensure smooth administrative and judicial functioning of the court.”
The public interest litigation, filed by lawyer Ashok Pande, was heard by a bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud. The petition had sought that the Supreme Court should ensure Constitution Benches are comprised of the five senior-most judges, or a combination of the three senior-most and two junior-most judges, and to ensure that the court forms specialised benches to hear specific cases such as tax, criminal or land disputes.
“Unfettered power is being exercised by the chief justices in the matter of formation of benches, and so, the same is liable to be regulated through specific Rules,” the petition had said.
Justice Chandrachud, who wrote the judgement for the bench, said, “The chief justice of India is first among equals and has the authority to decide allocation of cases and setting up of benches”. As the chief justice is a high constitutional functionary, there cannot be “any distrust about the responsibilities he discharges”, the order said.
Chief justices, who are the administrative heads of the Supreme Court, usually recuse themselves from cases in which the top court is a respondent on the ground of conflict of interest, according to Bar and Bench. However, Misra did not do so in this case.
Pande’s petition came in the aftermath of a press conference in January where four senior judges of the Supreme Court raised questions, among other things, about Chief Justice Dipak Misra’s role as the “master of roster”. They questioned the chief justice for bypassing established traditions of the court in assigning cases to benches. On April 7 too, Justice Chelameswar, who ranks second in the court after Misra, had reiterated that the chief justice’s power as “master of the roster” should be exercised responsibly.
Senior lawyer and former Law Minister Shanti Bhushan has also moved the Supreme Court, urging that a collegium of five senior judges should exercise the power to allocate cases, and not only the chief justice of India.
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