‘Master of Roster’ row: SC seeks AG’s assistance to decide Shanti Bhushan’s PIL

Satya Prakash

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Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 13

Despite certain recent verdicts declaring Chief Justice of India as “Master of Roster”, the controversy surrounding CJI’s administrative powers to allocate work to various Benches appears to be far from over.

The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to examine a PIL filed by former Law Minister Shanti Bhushan questioning the CJI’s administrative power as “Master of Roster” and its alleged arbitrary use for allocation of cases to brother judges.

A Bench of Justice AK Sikri and Justice Ashok Bhushan sought the assistance of Attorney-General KK Venugopal and Additional Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta in deciding the PIL and posted the matter for further hearing on April 27.

The issue has been a subject of public debate since January 12 when in an unprecedented move, Justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, MB Lokur and Kurian Joseph held a press conference and publicly criticised CJI Misra for allocating cases to judges in an arbitrary manner. The situation in the Supreme Court was "not in order" and many "less than desirable" things had taken place in the last few months, they had said.

However, when senior advocates representing Bhushan mentioned the January 12 press conference, the Bench said, “We are not going to go into it. We are not concerned with it for many reasons and obvious reasons. Don't say all this."

Referring to its recent verdicts, the Bench said the top court had already held that CJI is the 'Master of Roster'. In its April 11 verdict, it said the CJI was the "first among equals" and occupied a unique position having the "exclusive prerogative" to allocate cases and set up benches to hear cases.

On Thursday, Justice Chelameswar had refused to order this petition’s listing saying he did not want his order to be reversed again in 24 hours.

“You are praying that any reference to the ‘Chief Justice of India’ must be deemed to mean a collegium of five senior judges of the apex court?” Justice Sikri asked the petitioner.

Senior counsel Dushyant Dave responded, “Yes, the Supreme Court Rules framed under Article 145 as well as the Protocol of this court are being violated so far as the assignment of cases is concerned…it is the constitutional principle that nobody, regardless of rank or status, is above the law.”

“There are hundreds of cases filed before the Supreme Court on a daily basis…it is not feasible to have the collegium sit twice or thrice a week to oversee assignment of these matters,” the Bench said.

“We have been in this court for 40-50 years…we are not against any specific individual…but were are troubled…,” said senior counsel Kapil Sibal, adding that “you have to devise a procedure (on allocation of cases to SC judges) not for us, but for the sake of the institution.”

Earlier, Dave said, “It (the PIL) raises a very substantial issue and is founded on the principle of ‘May you be howsoever high, the law is above you’."