CHIEF JUSTICE OF INDIA: A MASTER OF ROSTER

The Chief Justice of India has some specific power apart from other judges of the Supreme Court to have absolute discretion to allocate day to day legal work among the other judges.  In recent decision the Supreme  refused to take away the chief justice’s power to assign cases to any bench and give it to the collegium — the top five judges in terms of seniority in the court — saying it would create more confusion and delays.

This power had come under much public scrutiny after the four senior most judges went public with their grievances over the way sensitive political cases were being assigned to ‘junior judges’. CJI Dipak Misra had shuffled the roster of business in the wake of the controversy to sort out the in-house differences.
The issue, however, continued to simmer with several PILs raising the matter of whether the CJI could still deal with a case when the allegations were against himself. This despite the CJI, at a head of a five-judge bench, reaffirming his power to assign cases as the master of the roster.
The CJI’s decision had come after his former number two Jasti Chelameswar had assigned a case regarding a medical scam from Odisha to himself, a petition which had pointed fingers at the CJI.

In this way there was much dialogue among society in relation to CJI power to allocate the case among his brother judges

Shanti Bhushan who is an eminent and senior advocate of Supreme Court and also is the former Union Law Minister filed a PIL, Shanti Bhushan v Supreme Court of India through its Registrar and another in Writ Petition (Civil) No. 789 of 2018 (Arising out of Diary No. 12405 of 2018)  seeking relief to declare that the function of allocating cases and assigning benches should be exercised by the collegium of five senior Judges instead of the Chief Justice of India. The petition was not acted upon by the Bench of Apex Court comprising of Justice AK Sikri and Justice Ashok Bhushan.

Before this case two more cases related to this i.e. Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms v. Union of India & Anr (2018) 1 SCC 196 Writ Petition (Cri) No. 169 of 2017 and Asok Pande v Supreme Court India through its Registrar and Ors., (2018) 5 SCC Scale 481were decided by the supreme court and the CJI was declared as master of roster. Shanti Bhushan v Supreme Court of India through its Registrar and another in Writ Petition (Civil) No. 789 of 2018 (Arising out of Diary No. 12405 of 2018)  is the third and most recent case were it was reaffirmed regarding CJI.

  the constitution Bench decision in Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms v. Union of India & Anr (2018) 1 SCC 196 Writ Petition (Cri) No. 169 of 2017 famously known as CJAR judgment was followed by the Bench. The CJAR judgment had affirmed the powers of CJI as the master of the roster. In CJAR, the Constitution Bench applied the decision in State of Rajasthan v Prakash Chand (1998) 1 SCC 1, which was rendered in the context of powers of Chief Justice of High Court. It was said in CJAR ruling that the same principle was applicable to the Supreme Court.

The Bench also extensively relied upon the decision in Asok Pande case titled Asok Pande v Supreme Court India through its Registrar and Ors., (2018) 5 SCC Scale 481. Asok Pande's PIL, among other things, had sought a declaration that allocation of business should be done by a collegiums of three senior Judges. The CJI-led Bench of three Judges refused the prayer on two counts. Firstly, it was held that as per Supreme Court Rules, assignment of cases had to be done by CJI. The Supreme Court Rules are framed by the Supreme Court in exercise of powers under Article 145 of the Constitution. A direction cannot be issued to a rule-making authority to frame rules in a particular manner. Secondly, it re-affirmed the principle that CJI was an institution in himself and that his administrative power to allocate cases cannot be delegated to Collegium. It was held that the present Bench was bound by the decisions in CJAR and Asok Pande's case.

The argument of the petitioner was that "Chief Justice of India" was interpreted to mean the collegiums in the Second Judges Case.  It was held that the power to allocate business was altogether different, as it is an administrative function flowing from Article 145 of the Constitution. This kind of system which is devised for the appointment of Judges cannot be replicated when it comes to the role of the Chief Justice as Master of Roster. We have to keep in mind that the Chief Justice, as the head of the Supreme Court of India, and the Chief Justices of the High Courts, have to perform many other functions, on the administrative sides in their capacities as Chief Justices. Framing of the Roster and constituting the Benches is one among them. In case the expression 'Chief Justice' is to be interpreted as 'Collegium', it would be difficult to have smooth day to day functioning of the Supreme Court, or for that matter the High Courts, observed the judgment in that regard

Referring to State of Uttar Pradesh and Others Vs. Neeraj Chaubey and Others, (2010) 10 SCC 320, it was observed that "in event the distribution is not done by the Chief Justice of India, it may generate internal strife on account of hankering for a particular jurisdiction or a particular case". "If the Judges were free to choose their jurisdiction or any choice was given to them to do whatever case they may like to hear and decide, the machinery of the Court would collapse and the judicial work of the Court would cease 

AK Sikri and Ashok Bhushan accepted the submission of Attorney General KK Venugopal that allocation of business by collegiums will affect the day to day functioning of the Court. When it comes to assigning the cases to a particular Bench, it has to be undertaken by the Chief Justice on daily basis in contrast with the meetings of the Collegium for the purpose of appointment of Judges, which is infrequent. Thus, meeting of Collegium for the purpose of assigning the cases to a particular Bench on daily basis is clearly impracticable, 

Justice AK Sikri in Para 24 that, "The power of the 'Chief Justice' does not extend to regulate the functioning of a particular Bench to decide cases assigned to him once the cases are allocated to that Bench. A Bench comprising of puisne Judges exercise its judicial functions without interference from others, including the 'Chief Justice', as it is supposed to act according to law. Therefore, when a particular matter is assigned to a particular Bench, that Bench acquires the complete dominion over the case.

                                                   Thus in this way we are very clear the CJI have the absolute power for allocating work to other judges being master of roster which was affirmed through various case decided by the supreme court.

                                            PRASOON KUMAR MISHRA, ADVOCATE