{"id":34012,"date":"2018-10-30T15:26:41","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T09:56:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=34012"},"modified":"2018-10-30T15:26:41","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T09:56:41","slug":"a-question-of-probity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/a-question-of-probity\/","title":{"rendered":"A question of probity\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/opinion\/lead\/a-question-of-probity\/article20445800.ece\"><b>A question of probity<\/b><\/a><b>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>Context:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court led by the Chief Justice of India, in a case concerning corruption arising out of certain judicial proceedings, declared that <\/span><b>the master who alone could decide what case goes to which judge in the Supreme Court.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The registry <\/span><b>published a circular notifying lawyers and litigants not to orally mention fresh cases<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> before any other Supreme Court judge except before the Bench presided by the Chief Justice of India<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What was the issue?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On November 9, advocate Kamini Jaiswal had made <\/span><b>an urgent oral mention<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of a petition before a two-judge Bench. The petition wanted <\/span><b>the investigation into the medical college corruption<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">case to be transferred from the CBI to a SIT supervised by a retired CJI.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The petition said the <\/span><b>FIR suspected that a conspiracy was highlighted to bribe Supreme Court judges<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The two-judge Bench immediately listed the case for hearing on the same afternoon and ordered a Constitution Bench of the \u201cfirst five judges in the order of seniority\u201d to be set up on November 13 to hear Ms. Jaiswal\u2019s petition.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What was the CJI\u2019s reaction to it?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice Misra effectively prevented the scheduled hearing on November 13 by laying down the law that <\/span><b>no two-judge Bench can command the Chief Justice of India to constitute Benches to hear cases in the Supreme Court.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Chief Justice of India is the sole master and carries the complete administrative prerogative over which judge should hear which case in the apex court. The Constitution Bench, in effect, <\/span><b>nullified the two-judge Bench\u2019s order.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What is the way ahead?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The principle that the <\/span><b>Chief Justice of India is the master of the roster must be re-examined<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Although there can scarcely be any argument against it as a tenet of judicial discipline, it would be naive to consider it an absolute principle of justice delivery.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>unchecked power of the Chief Justice of India to constitute Benches must be similarly circumscribed<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Doing so does not amount to mistrusting the Chief Justice, but rather being cognisant of changing demands of accountability.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The moral <\/span><b>authority of the Chief Justice of India and the Supreme Court is to be restored<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, something similar is needed urgently. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In respect of judicial appointments a <\/span><b>\u2018glasnost\u2019 and \u2018perestroika\u2019<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is required if the system is to regain public confidence.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A question of probity\u00a0 Context: A five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court led by the Chief Justice of India, in a case concerning corruption arising out of certain judicial proceedings, declared that the master who alone could decide what case goes to which judge in the Supreme Court. The registry published a circular notifying&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/a-question-of-probity\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">A question of probity\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704920817},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34012\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}