Personal liberty to get priority under new CJI

NEW DELHI: Matters of personal liberty will be prioritised in the new regime, Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud declared on Friday, unveiling his plans as the first judge of the country to grant immediate hearing to petitions asking for bail.

Justice Chandrachud, who took over as CJI on November 9, had a full court meeting on November 15 with all the judges of the Supreme Court where a resolution was adopted to hear 10 bail matters and 10 transfer petitions on each day of the week.

“We had a full court and it was decided that 10 transfer petitions will be listed every day during the week. Currently, we have 13 benches in the court. So, we will dispose of 650 cases every week on the five working days. We have 3,000-odd transfer petitions at the moment. The endeavour is to finish all the pending transfer petition cases before we close for the winter vacation,” the CJI told the lawyers present in his court hall for assignment of dates of hearing.

Transfer petition cases involve marital disputes where one of the spouses seeks shifting of the case to another place. Under the Constitution as well as civil and criminal procedure codes, only the Supreme Court has the power to transfer cases from one court to another, in