Master of roster not CJI’s arbitrary power to handpick Benches, Shanti Bhushan tells Supreme Court

His petition says the decision of allocation of cases should be done, not unilaterally by the CJI, but collectively by the Collegium.

A view of the Supreme Court in New Delhi.

Former Law Minister and senior advocate Shanti Bhushan on Friday moved the Supreme Court for a declaration that the authority of the Chief Justice of India (CJI) as ‘master of roster’ should not be reduced to an absolute, singular and arbitrary power.

Mr. Bhushan quoted the Supreme Court Rules of 2013, which highlights transparency in the administrative function of the CJI to allocate cases to the various Benches of judges in the Supreme Court.

The petition said the term ‘Chief Justice of India’ in this context should be interpreted as the collegium of senior judges. The decision of allocation of cases should be done, not unilaterally by the CJI, but collectively by the Collegium.

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The petition refers to the incident where a five-judge Constitution Bench presided by CJI Dipak Misra was convened on short notice some time back to declare the CJI as ‘master of roster.’ The Constitution Bench at that time effectively nullified an order passed by a Bench led by the Supreme Court’s number two judge, Justice Jasti Chelameswar, only the previous day.

Justice Chelameswar’s order wanted a Bench of the seniormost judges to hear petitions for an independent probe into the Lucknow medical college scam.

The issue related to allegations that the college authorities wanted to bribe Supreme Court judges. The medical college case was heard by a Bench led by the CJI.

Judges go public against cases' allocation by CJI

Subsequently on January 12, four seniormost judges — Justices Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B. Lokur and Kurian Joseph — went public against the selective allocation of cases by the CJI to “preferred Benches.”

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In his petition, Mr. Bhushan asked the Supreme Court to “clarify the administrative authority of the CJI as the master of roster and for the laying down of the procedure and principles to be followed in preparing the roster for allocation of cases.”

“Master of roster cannot be unguided and unbridled discretionary power, exercised arbitrarily by the Chief Justice of India by hand-picking benches of select Judges or by assigning cases to particular judges,” the petition said.

It said “the collective opinion of a collegium of senior judges is much safer than the opinion of the Chief Justice alone.”

Mr. Bhushan argued that international best practices are based on objective rules for case allocation that respect collegiality, the relevance of seniority, equality of the Justices, fairness of work distribution, expertise and transparency.