The Supreme Court today said that the Chief Justice of India is the master of the roster, and still commands the decision to allocate cases in response to the petition filed by the Former Law Minister Shanti Bhushan. He had filed the plea, seeking new judges to take decisions about the cases, and expressed his doubts over the role of Chief Justice Dipak Misra in January this year. Justices AK Sikri and Ashok Bhushan echoed the sentiments/decision made by the previous benches on the matter, and said that, “The Chief Justice (CJI) has the role of first among equals and is empowered to exercise leadership in administration of the court which includes assignment of cases.”
They also said that, there is no dispute that the Chief Justice is the master of roster and allocates cases to Judges. And also expressed that, the constitution is silent on the Chief Justice. “Conventions and judgements over the time and accepted by all stake holders that the Chief Justice is first among judges and senior most.”
Shanti Bhushan had stated that the Chief Justice shouldn’t be unhinged and unbridled, and the roster shouldn’t be picked only by him, for assigning cases to the other judges to study. On January 12, 2018 Chief Justice – Justices J Chelameswar (now retired), Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph had held an unprecedented press conference in which they accused the Chief Justice of bias and said that the Supreme court was not working in order that it should be.
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