Bhushan wants collegium to decide on listing of cases

Former Union law minister and senior advocate Shanti Bhushan on Friday moved the Supreme Court seeking clarification on the administrative authority of the CJI as the master of roster. He also sought a direction that in future listing of cases before the appropriate benches should be decided by collegium of five judges.

He filed the PIL through his advocate and son Prashant who wrote a letter to the apex court’s secretary general stating that the matter should not be listed before a bench that includes the CJI. He has stated that the “master of roster” cannot be unguided and unbridled discretionary power, exercised arbitrarily by the CJI by hand- picking benches of select judges or by assigning cases to particular judges.

The petition said the CJI’s authority as the master of roster is “not an absolute, arbitrary, singular power that is vested in the chief justice alone and which may be exercised with his sole discretion.”