SC crisis settled: CJI appoints five-member panel to hear major cases

A senior advocate said there was a need to resolve the crisis as several important PILs are likely to be heard from tomorrow before the constitution bench of the Supreme Court. Attorney General KK Venugopal and the Bar Council President, however, claimed that the crisis in the country’s top court “has been settled”.

All courts are functioning and everyone is discharging their duties. “The storm in a tea cup was resolved over a cup of tea”. At the meeting, Justice Arun Mishra took exception to the four rebel judges taking his name at the press conference on January 12 and “broke down” while talking about how his image had been tarnished. The collegium system of appointing judges has also been questioned by many in the media, who they think is creating much opaqueness about the working and appointment of the judges.

Reportedly, the judges had met over tea on Monday morning, following the decades-old custom of meeting before the proceedings of the court commence for the day. Their charge that the CJI was allotting sensitive cases to the junior judges fell flat after someone dug out 15 such cases since 1998, which were also assigned to juniors by Misra’s predecessors.

Attorney-general K.K. Venugopal too told reporters that “everything has been settled, everything is under control”, while admitting that he had not met any of the judges.

An office-bearer of the Supreme Court Bar Association said the situation has remained the same and perhaps the resolution passed by the bar body is still under the consideration of the judges.

Reuters was able to confirm that the letter was drafted and signed by four former judges P.B.Sawant, A.P.Shah, K. Chandru and H. Suresh.

India’s Supreme Court, ostensibly the world’s most powerful judicial institution, is in the grip of a crisis following its four senior-most judges’ public disapproval of the manner in which Chief Justice Dipak Misra distribute work among the judges.

BCI chairperson Manan Mishra said this was Bhushan’s attempt to bring down the judiciary.

The Judge Loya death case was one of the reasons which prompted four senior to take their grievance about case allotment to the public on 12 January. However, sources close to the judges said that till late Sunday evening, there had been no overture in this regard on Justice Misras part.