In an open letter to the Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, a former Supreme Court judge and three former high court judges urged the CJI to take immediate steps to “restore public confidence in the judiciary and in the Supreme Court.”
The former Supreme Court judge PB Sawant, the former chief justice of the Delhi High Court AP Shah, the former Madras High Court judge K Chandru and the former Bombay High Court judge H Suresh wrote that they agreed with a concern expressed recently by four of the senior-most judges of the Supreme Court. On the morning of 12 January, four sitting justices—Jasti Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph—approached the CJI to discuss the allocation of the hearing of two petitions concerning the death of the judge BH Loya in 2014, which were due to be heard later that day. The petitions had been allocated to a bench comprising the judges Arun Mishra and Mohan Shantanagouder, who are ranked 10 and 22 in seniority, respectively.
Following their meeting with the CJI, the judges held a press conference in which they raised concerns regarding the functioning of the court’s roster as well as the CJI’s office. Speaking on behalf of the four judges, Chelameswar told the media: “We thought we owed a responsibility to the nation. We tried to collectively persuade the chief justice that certain things are not in order and therefore you should take remedial measures … Unfortunately, our efforts failed.” The judges also released a letter that they had written to the CJI in late 2017, in which they stated that the court’s rules regarding the assignment of cases “have not been strictly adhered to” and asked the CJI to finalise the memorandum of procedure at the earliest.
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