CJI, JUSTICES MEET AT PUBLIC EVENT

Two of the four senior-most SC judges made their first public appearance with the CJI after airing grievances earlier this month.

NEWDELHI: A fortnight after four senior judges of the Supreme Court went public with their criticism against Chief Justice Dipak Misra over allocation of cases, two of them — Justice MB Lokur and Justice Kurien Joseph — made their first public appearance with the CJI at Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) function on Tuesday.

Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice UU Lalit were also present at the function to mark the launch of SCBA Times, a monthly journal of the association. However, Justice J Chelameswar and Justice Ranjan Gogoi were absent.

While launching the maiden issue, the CJI congratulated the association for coming out with the journal. Justice Misra said books would remain in the world as long as civilisation lasts. “Books are an old friend of man. He can always read them for solace, sleep with it and gain knowledge,” the chief said.

Speaking at the launch, Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said there was need for a national debate on simultaneous conduct of polls for Lok Sabha and state Assemblies to save cost, pressure on security personnel and implementation of welfare schemes. He urged the SCBA to debate on the crucial issue, in the journal, because multiple elections create problems in governance. Welfare schemes, he said, get dislocated due to model code of conduct coming into force due to frequent elections in the country.

“I don’t wish to make any political comment but just now we had two state elections, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. In one-and-half months we are going to have elections of Tripura and also Meghalaya. Thereafter we are going to have elections of Karnataka. There should be a debate as to what is the way forward,” he said.