Ex-law minister Shanti Bhushan challenges 'master of the roster'

Former law minister Shanti Bhushan has filed a petition seeking clarification on Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra’s administrative authority as the master of the roster. In his petition, Bhushan has sought directions on CJI Misra’s role for laying down the principles and procedure to be followed in preparing it for allocation of cases.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, who filed the petition, has also written to the secretary general requesting the listing of the matter before a bench that does not include the CJI. Prashant has contended that it would be appropriate to list the matter before the three senior-most judges of the top court, who would then allocate the matter before an appropriate bench.

According to the petition, the “master of roster” cannot be unguided and unbridled discretionary power, exercised arbitrarily by the CJI by hand-picking benches of select judges or by assigning cases to particular judges. The CJI’s authority as the master of roster is “not an absolute, arbitrary, singular power that is vested in the chief justice alone and which may be exercised with his sole discretion.”

This authority, the petition states, must be exercised in consultation with the senior judges of the Supreme Court in keeping with the various pronouncement of this court.

Earlier this year, to offset the accusation that cases of national importance were being allocated to “preferred benches,” CJI Misra unveiled a new roster system – along the lines of those at the High Courts, that shows the distribution and allocation of cases to the 12 senior-most judges of the top court.

The transparency in the allocation of the cases came weeks after four senior Supreme Court judges – Justices Jasti Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan Lokur and Kurian Joseph accused CJI Misra of tinkering with a well-established system.