LAHORE: In a bid to address the grievances of four senior-most judges, Indian Chief Justice, Dipak Misra, has introduced a roster system for allocation of matters to the arbiters of the country's Apex Court.
The top Indian arbiter's decision was made public on the Apex court's website through a 13-page notification. The roster system will come into effect from February 5. Previously, the cases in the Indian Supreme Court were assigned by the Chief Justice in his capacity as the master of the roster.
This decision thus stands as a "moral victory" for the stance of the four revolting arbiters, Justice Chelameswar, Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice MB Lokur and Justice Kurian Joseph, who had had questioned the allocation of sensitive Public Interest Litigations and important cases to judges junior in seniority and had sought transparency in their January 12 Press conference.
Cases would now be allocated to the benches headed by the Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justices Chelameswar, Gogoi, Lokur, Joseph, A K Sikri, S A Bobde, R K Agrawal, N V Ramana, Arun Mishra, A K Goel and R F Nariman. The names of these 12 judges are in the order of their seniority.
The four 'rebel' judges of the Supreme Court have now been allotted important cases in the new roster. Justice Chelameswar, the senior-most judge after the Chief Justice, would deal with matters related to judicial officers, employees of Supreme Court, high courts, district courts and tribunals for hearings. The bench headed by him will also deal with matters like labour, indirect tax, land acquisition and requisition, compensation, criminal matters, etc.
Justice Gogoi, who, during the press conference, had answered in affirmative the concern over the allocation of the Public Interest Litigations relating to the late special CBI Judge BH Loya to a bench headed by a particular judge, has been allocated matters relating to labour, indirect tax, company law, MRTP, TRAI, SEBI, RBI, criminal matters, contempt of court, personal law, religious and charitable endowments, mercantile laws, commercial transactions including banking etc.
Justice Lokur has been allocated matters including service, social justice, personal laws, land acquisition, mines and minerals and consumer protection. He will also hear matters related to ecological imbalance: protection and conservation of forests throughout the country, protection of wild life, ban on felling trees and falling of underground water level.
Justice Joseph's bench has been assigned to deal with matters including labour, rent act, family law, contempt of court, personal law etc. He will also hear matters related to religious and charitable endowments and all land laws and agriculture tenancies.
The "Indian Express" writes: "The CJI has been asserting his rights as 'master of roster', but in a series of instances, the four other Supreme Court judges - Justices Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan Lokur and Kurian Joseph - had pointed out in their letter written to him two and a half months ago, which they made public, the rostering of cases was such as to not inspire confidence in the system being fair, transparent or just. The four judges, who had raised concerns over the allocation of cases, are learnt to have proposed the setting up of a committee comprising judges who would be Chief Justices in the future to suggest an institutional mechanism for marking of cases as per the Roster that would be notified by the SC Registry. The SC Roster is not known to the public. Making it public has been one of the demands of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) too."
The Indian CJ has also allocated to the bench headed by him the petitions based on letters, election cases and matters pertaining to contempt of court and constitutional functionaries. He will also deal with cases related to commissions of enquiry, statutory appointments and appointment of other law officers, habeas corpus (a writ requiring a person under arrest to be brought before a court) matters, issues concerning judicial officers, employees of Supreme Court, high courts, district courts and tribunals etc.
from The News International - Top Story http://ift.tt/2nHVDf5
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