Apex court overturns 2-judge order in medical scam case

› Can a 2judge bench refer a matter to particular 5judge bench? Are other judges incompetent and are you doubting everybody’s integrity in this court? JUSTICE ARUN MISHRA, SC judge, on Justice Chelameswar’s order

NEW DELHI: There was high drama in the Supreme Court for the second consecutive day on Friday, with the Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra constituting a special five-judge bench to hear a case casting aspersions on the judiciary and, at the same time, annulling an order passed by a two-judge bench of the apex court on Thursday, listing the case for hearing by a Constitution Bench of the five-senior most judges of the court, minus the Chief Justice himself.

The drama wasn’t restricted to the scrapping of the day-old order, though. It also included criticism of that order, an exchange between the chief justice and lawyer Prashant Bhushan with the latter asking the former to recuse himself from the case and the former refusing to do so, and a demand by a group of lawyers for a contempt petition against Bhushan, for casting aspersions on the Chief Justice.

At the heart of the controversy that is roiling the country’s top court, and forcing judges and lawyers to take sides, is a case filed by the Prasad Education Trust seeking relief from a government order barring it from admitting students to its medical college in 2017-18 and 2018-19. The trust sought relief from the Supreme Court and the Allahabad high court.