New Delhi, Jan 13 (PTI) The Supreme Court Bar Association(SCBA) today expressed "grave concern" over the differences offour seniormost judges with Chief Justice of India (CJI) DipakMisra and said the issue should be immediately considered bythe full court of the apex court.
The SCBA executive committee, which held an emergencymeeting, resolved that all public interest litigation (PIL)matters, including the pending PILs, should be either taken upby the CJI or be assigned for adjudication to four seniorjudges who were part of the apex court collegium.
Besides CJI Misra, others in the collegium in accordancewith seniority are -- justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, MB Lokur and Kurian Joseph.
The four judges had in an unprecedented press conferenceyesterday mounted a virtual revolt against the CJI, listing alitany of problems including the assigning of cases.
SCBA President and senior advocate Vikas Singh said thata resolution for the full court consideration was passed as itis a mechanism in which deliberations by all the judges of thetop court takes place in-house and not in the open.
The SCBA resolution said that matters listed for hearingin the apex court on January 15 "should also be transferred"from other judges to the five seniormost judges who were partof the collegium.
"The differences that have been reported in the pressconference by the four senior judges of the Supreme Court andthe other differences which are reflected in the newspapersare of grave concern and should be immediately considered bythe full court of the Supreme Court," Singh said while readingout the resolution.
"It is further unanimously resolved by the executivecommittee of the Supreme Court Bar Association that all PILmatters including the pending PIL matters should be eithertaken up by the Chief Justice of India, or if he has to assignto any other bench, it should be assigned to the judges in thecollegium. Even the matters listed on Monday i.e. January 15,2018, should also be transferred as per our request," it said.
The SCBA president, who addressed the media after comingout of an over hour-long closed-door meeting of the executivecommittee, however, did not comment on whether the seniorjudges should have gone public with their grievances.
Singh said that if required, the SCBA would seek anappointment with the CJI and other judges to talk about thedevelopments which were a matter of grave concern.
The four judges had yesterday said there were certainissues afflicting the country's highest court and warned thatthey could destroy Indian democracy.
The press conference by the judges had left the judiciaryand observers stunned, leaving uncertain how this opendissension in the hallowed institution would be resolved. PTIABA MNL UK SJK RKSSC.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.