The Supreme Court on Wednesday published a new roster for the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition cases to be heard by a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi as also by a Bench headed by Justice Madan B Lokur, second seniormost judge of the court.
Besides PIL pleas and letter petitions, the Bench headed by the CJI will also hear matters pertaining to social justice, election, habeas corpus , contempt of court, appointment of constitutional functionaries, among others.
The Bench headed by Justice Lokur will hear PIL pleas assigned to it by the CJI.
Personal Law matters will be heard by Benches headed by Justices Lokur, AK Sikri, Kurian Joseph, NV Ramana, and UU Lalit.
Roster system introduced in January by former CJI
Departing from practice where any matter could be allocated to any Bench, former CJI Dipak Misra in February introduced the roster system mandating that only the Bench headed by him would hear PIL pleas.
The roster system was introduced following the unprecedented press conference in January by Justices Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Lokur and Kurian Joseph —— alleging arbitrary allocation of work by the CJI, and demanding transparency.
