Top lawyers’ body backs judges who took on CJI

SC Bar Association says PILs must go to seniormost judges only

› The differences... are of grave concern and should be immediately considered by the full court of the Supreme Court.

› VIKAS SINGH, SC Bar Association president No political party or leader should take an undue advantage of the situation arising out of the press conference of the 4 senior SC judges MANAN KUMAR MISHRA, Bar Council of India chairperson

NEW DELHI : A day after the rift between the top judges in the Supreme Court of India became public, the four judges who criticised the Chief Justice of India (CJI) for his style of administration and over the allocation of cases got support from the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), the apex body of lawyers practising in the top court, for their demand to reassign the petition seeking further probe into the death of Judge Brijgopal Loya to another bench.

This case appears to be the final straw that made the simmering differences between the top judges boil over.

Two petitions demanding a fair probe into Judge Loya’s mysterious death were listed before a bench that is headed by a judge who is 10th in terms of seniority.

The SCBA on Saturday passed a resolution saying “all PIL matters, including pending PIL matters, should be either taken up by the Honourable Chief Justice of India, or if he has to assign it to any other bench, it should be assigned to the judges in the collegium.”

SCBA president Vikas Singh clarified that by collegium, the association meant the top four judges after the CJI. The SC has two collegiums – one that has the chief justice and two of his immediate juniors in a threemember panel to pick high court judges, and the other that has the CJI and his four juniors who pick judges to the Supreme Court.

“Even the matters listed on Monday, January 15 (including the Judge Loya case) should also be transferred as per our request,” the SCBA said in a release that called the differences among the judges a “matter of grave concern” and requested the full court to consider the issue.

Other efforts were on to mediate between the CJI and the four senior judges of the SC.

The Bar Council of India (BCI), a regulatory body for the legal profession, set up a sevenmember panel to meet the chief justice Dipak Misra and the other judges and resolve the differences between them.