SC reiterates that Chief Justice is master of roster
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the Chief Justice of India’s role as “Master of Roster”. A two-judge bench, comprising Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan, stated that the CJI’S role could not be interpreted to include the Collegium when it comes to the allocation for cases as it will make day-to-day functioning difficult.
Disposing of the petition filed by senior advocate Shanti Bhushan, Justice A K Sikri said, “Erosion of respect for the Judiciary in public minds is the greatest threat to the independence of the institution.”
Justices Sikri and Bhushan delivered two separate but concurring judgments upholding the prerogative of the CJI in allocating cases.
Reacting to the verdict, advocate Prashant Bhushan, who represented Shanti Bhushan in court, tweeted, “Sad that SC today ruled that CJI can unilaterally decide the allocation of cases. 4 judges pointed out in PC that CJI was abusing his powers in allotting sensitive cases like Loya’s, medical college scam etc. Unfortunate that SC has not insulated itself from abuse of CJI’S powers.”
In his petition, Shanti Bhushan had questioned the CJI as the ‘Master of Roster’ and wanted either the Collegium or a full court to decide the allocation of cases.
Attorney General K K Venugopal, in response to the plea, had argued that the role “requires a decision on several aspects and that is not something that five (the Collegium) or all of them (judges) can sit and thrash it out”. He also told the court that “this is not like the appointment of judges… where the judges (of the Collegium) are not personally involved (they decide on the files of others). Here, they are personally involved, and each may want to hear cases of a particular jurisdiction”.
To this, Prashant Bhushan countered that it was safer to have a collective decision as the CJI, too, could want to hear cases of a particular jurisdiction.
In January this year, four senior-most judges — Justices J Chelameswar (since retired), Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph — of the Supreme Court, in an unprecedented press conference, said that the situation in the apex court was “not in order” and many “less than desirable” things had taken place.
Legal experts on Friday hailed the Supreme Court ruling that the chief justice of India is the "master of the roster", an issue which generated an intense debate in the wake of the January press meet by the four senior apex court judges who accused CJI Dipak Misra of assigning sensitive cases to judges junior to them.
Senior advocates Rakesh Dwivedi, K T S Tulsi, Vikas Singh and constitutional expert Govind Goel were of the view that former law minister Shanti Bhushan's stand that the CJI has to work in consultation with the other members of the Collegium for allocation of cases was not only "incorrect" but also "preposterous".
They maintained that such a premise could "paralyse" the functioning of the court.
The lawyer said the apex court verdict is "correct" as the CJI has "the complete power" to allocate cases to different benches.
At the same time, Tulsi, also a Rajya Sabha MP from the Congress, said that in case an allegation is made, the CJI should leave the matter to the other members of the Colle- gium for allocation to a bench of which he is not a part.
Vikas Singh, who is also the Supreme Court Bar Association president, said that the top court today only reiterated what had been held earlier and there was no bar on the CJI having consultation with other four Collegium judges for the constitution of the benches.
Dwivedi said that the CJI is "undoubtedly" the master of the roster after a bench comprising justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan held that the chief justice occupied the role of "first among equals".