SC to decide if Collegium is the real ‘Master of Roster’

Source – thehindu.com

The Supreme Court will pronounce its judgment on a petition filed by former union law minister Shanti Bhushan to have a Collegium of Supreme Court judges collectively allocate cases in the apex court rather than leave the entire power in the hands of the CJI in his administrative capacity as ‘Master of Roster’.

A Bench of Justices A.K. Sikri and Ashok Bhushan is scheduled to pronounce the judgment at 10.30 a.m. on Friday.

Mr. Bhushan has argued that the authority of the Chief Justice of India as ‘Master of Roster’ to allocate cases to Benches in the top court should not be reduced to an “absolute, singular and arbitrary power”.

The Bench had observed that the plea should be tested on the touchstone of Article 145 (Rules of the court governing its practices and procedures) of the Constitution.

“Difficulties can always be resolved. We have to see what the Constitution has in mind,” Justice Bhushan had said while reserving the case for judgment on April 27.

Attorney General K.K. Venugopal, who was asked to assist the court, had argued that having a Collegium of the five senior-most judges to allocate cases among all judges in the court would only invite chaos.

Unlike a Collegium to recommend new judges, a Collegium to allocate cases would mean judges deciding for themselves which cases they should hear. Better have the CJI decide for all as Master of Roster, Mr. Venugopal had opined in his submissions to the Bench.

Justice Sikri had observed that the allocation of cases was not always done on the initiative of the Chief Justice. At times the judges themselves “express anguish as to why ‘I was not given this or that matter’”.

Mr. Venugopal had recalled how one of the major grievances of controversial former Calcutta High Court judge, C.S. Karnan, was that he was not given bail matters.

Justice Bhushan had noted that there may be difficulties in having a Collegium to allocate cases, but the Supreme Court’s primary concern would be whether the Constitution intended.

The Bench hear this 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 these judgments were pronounced by Benches led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra. The April 9 verdict called the CJI an “institution in himself”.

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

Senior advocate Dushyant Dave, for Mr. Bhushan, had referred to the Judges case of 1998 to argue that the Supreme Court itself had interpreted the term ‘Chief Justice of India’ to collectively mean the CJI and his four senior-most judges.