New Delhi, Jan 14 (PTI) Four retired judges, including anex-Supreme Court judge, today wrote an open letter to thechief justice of India, saying they agree with the issuesraised by the four apex court judges over allocation of casesand the crisis needs to be resolved "within the judiciary".
The letter by former apex court judge P B Sawant, ex-chief justice of Delhi High Court A P Shah, former Madras HighCourt judge K Chandru and ex-Bombay High Court judge H Sureshwas given to the media. It also went viral on social media.
Justice Shah confirmed having written an open letteralong with the other retired judges and told PTI, "We havewritten the open letter which the other judges named in theletter have also consented to."He said that the view expressed by the retired judges is"quite similar to the views of the Supreme Court BarAssociation (SCBA) that till this crisis is resolved, theimportant matters should be listed before a five-judgeConstitution bench of senior judges".
Justice Shah said that earlier he was not sure about theconsent given by the other three judges and, therefore, heinitially denied having written any letter but now all of themhave given consent to it.
The letter quoted the judges as having said, "The foursenior puisne Judges of the Supreme Court have brought tolight a serious issue regarding the manner of allocation ofcases, particularly sensitive cases, to various benches of theSupreme Court.
"They have expressed a grave concern that cases are notbeing allocated in a proper manner and are being allocatedarbitrarily to particular designated benches, often headed byjunior judges, in an arbitrary manner. This is having a verydeleterious effect on the administration of justice and therule of law."The four retired judges said that they agree with thefour judges of top court that though the CJI is the master ofroster and can designate benches for allocation of work butthis does not mean that it can be done in an "arbitrarymanner" such that, "sensitive and important cases" are sent to"hand-picked benches" of junior judges by the chief justice.
"This issue needs to be resolved and clear rules andnorms must be laid down for allocation of benches anddistribution of cases, which are rational, fair andtransparent," they said, adding that this must be done"immediately to restore public confidence" in the judiciaryand in the Supreme Court.
The letter further said that "however till that is done,it is important that all sensitive and important casesincluding pending ones, be dealt with by a Constitution benchof the five seniormost judges of this Court".
It added, "Only such measures would assure the peoplethat the Supreme Court is functioning in a fair andtransparent manner and that the power of the Chief Justice asmaster of roster is not being misused to achieve a particularresult in important and sensitive cases. We, therefore, urgeyou to take immediate steps in this regard." PTI MNL ABA PKSRKSSC.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.