Collegium allotting cases will cause chaos’

Collegium allotting cases will cause chaos’

What has happened?

Attorney-General K.K. Venugopal on Friday differed with a plea by former Law Minister Shanti Bhushan to have a collegium of Supreme Court judges collectively allocate cases in the court rather than leave the entire power in the hands of the Chief Justice of India in his administrative capacity as “master of roster”

Attorney general’s view

• It will mean judges deciding for themselves which cases they should hear
• Having a collegium to allocate cases among judges would invite chaos

The Constitution

SC said that plea should be tested on the touchstone of Article 145 (Rules of the court governing its practices and procedures) of the Constitution

The Plea

• The Supreme Court had earlier agreed to examine a petition filed by Mr. Shanti Bhushan to declare that the authority of the Chief Justice of India as ‘master of roster’ should not be reduced to an absolute, singular and arbitrary power.
• The Bench had decided to hear the petition despite two separate judgments by the Supreme Court in November 2017 and April 9, 2018 upholding the Chief Justice of India’s complete administrative authority to allocate cases and constitute Benches. Both judgments were pronounced by Benches led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra.
• The April 9 verdict called the CJI an “institution in himself”.

Absolute discretion

In his petition, Mr. Bhushan has said such “absolute discretion” cannot be confined in just one man, the Chief Justice of India

Example: In the judges case of 1998 the Supreme Court itself had interpreted the term ‘Chief Justice of India’ to collectively mean the CJI and his four senior-most judges.

What now?

The court reserved Mr. Shanti Bhushan’s plea for final orders.