Upset, Justice Mishra recuses from Loya case

On Monday, he accused seniors of ‘ tarnishing image’ Let the matter be put up before an appropriate court — Justice Arun Mishra, while recusing himself from Loya case

The storm kicked up last week by four Supreme Court judges, who went public with their grievances against the style of functioning of the Chief Justice of India, reported its first victim on Tuesday.

On a day when CJI Dipak Misra reached out to the four rebel judges to find a lasting solution to their concerns regarding allotment of cases and constitution of benches in the top court, Justice Arun Mishra recused himself from the Supreme Court bench hearing two PILs related to the alleged mysterious death of CBI judge B. H. Loya.

“Let the matter be put up before an appropriate court,” Justice Arun Mishra said after hearing PILs related to Loya’s death.

Judge Loya died under mysterious circumstances in 2014 while he was hearing the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case in which BJP chief Amit Shah was an accused. Less than a month after his death, the judge who replaced him ruled that Mr Shah had no case to answer and discharged him.

Justice Mishra’s decision to withdraw from the case comes amid a crisis of trust amongst the judges of the apex court which came out in the open on January 12 when four senior- most judges — Justice J. Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B. Lokur and Kurian Joseph — objected to important PILs, including the ones on Loya’s death, being assigned to junior judges. On Monday, in fact, this newspaper had reported that Justice Mishra broke down in a meeting of all judges and accused the four seniors of tarnishing his image by questioning his integrity.

On Tuesday, the two PILs came up before the bench of Justices Mishra and M. M. Santnagouder, and they directed the Maharashtra government to give all documents related to the judge’s death to the petitioners. Later, Justice Mishra recused himself from the matter. Earlier in the day, CJI Misra had invited the four rebel judges over to his chamber for a discussion and to try and find an amicable solution to the crisis that has hit the top court’s reputation.

The 15- minute meeting with the rebels came a day after attorney- general K. K. Venugopal jumped the gun and claimed that everything had been settled among the judges despite the tumultuous meeting on Monday during which Justice Mishra broke down and there were heated arguments.

Despite the discussion on Monday, CJI Misra had refrained from reconstituting the five- judge Constitution Bench to include in it the rebel judges who had complained of being sidelined. After Tuesday meeting, sources said, the CJI will continue the exercise on Wednesday to give a quietus to the whole issue.

One of the four judges, who attended the meeting on Tuesday, told this newspaper, “There is a new development. The chief called us. We had a talk and these discussions will continue tomorrow. Let us hope some development will take place for the betterment of the institution.” The meeting was also attended by Justices A. K. Sikri, Uday Lalit and D. Y. Chandrachud. In an apparent warning, the four judges had said on January 12 that the lack of impartiality in allocation of high profile cases and constitution of benches with junior judges could imperil India’s democracy. Attorney- general K. K. Venugopal who had claimed on Monday that the storm in the apex court had blown over, admitted that he had erred in assessing the situation. “Yes, I think it has not been settled. Let us hope things will be fully settled within two to three days,” he said on Tuesday.

Sources said that the impasse over including the four seniormost judges in the Constitution Bench still remains. As per a notification issued on Monday, the same composition of CJI and Justices Sikri, A. M. Kanwilkar, Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan will hear the Aadhaar and other cases.