Gogoi, Lokur to CJI: Hold full court on internal issue

New Delhi, April 25 

Two senior judges of the Supreme Court, Justices Ranjan Gogoi and MB Lokur, have urged Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra to hold a full court to discuss the institutional issues plaguing the higher judiciary.

The letter was written a day before Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah Naidu rejected the Opposition impeachment notice against the Chief Justice of India.

The issue raised in the letter is understood to have come up on Monday morning at the tea meeting attended by all the judges, which  delayed the start of the day’s court proceedings by about 15 minutes. Sources said Justices Gogoi and Lokur signed the joint two-line letter on April 22 in which they spoke about holding of a “full court”. 

The same issue was for the first time raised by Justice J Chelameswar on March 21, which was followed by a similar missive on April 9 by Justice Kurian Joseph who had sought the setting up of a Bench of seven senior-most judges to deal with the issues plaguing the top court. 

The short letter by Justices Gogoi and Lokur urged the CJI convene a full court on the judicial side to discuss institutional issues and the “future” of the top court, they said.

As per convention, a full court meeting of the Supreme Court, involving all judges, is usually convened by the CJI when a matter of public importance relating to the judiciary comes up.

The Monday morning tea meeting of all the judges was held just after Naidu had announced rejection of the impeachment notice. The sources said the CJI did not say anything about the outcome. — PTI