Four days after four of his senior-most brother-Judges held an unprecedented press conference after a tiff with him, in which they highlighted the manner in which he was breaching institutional integrity and tinkering with well-established systems, Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra Tuesday morning reached out to the four Judges. After a short meeting, which lasted about 25 minutes, it was decided to meet again tomorrow.
Sources said the CJI told the four Judges — Justices Jasti Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph — that he was open to a detailed discussion on all outstanding that are affecting the judicial administration of the apex court.
However, he didn't come out with any response to the issues raised by the Judges.
The CJI, however, didn't offer any concrete measure to assuage the four Judges.
He also did not signal to them his eagerness to make things more transparent in the functioning of the SC.
Among the issues flagged by the four senior Judges is the blatant disregard for established norms by the CJI in reassigning sensitive cases being heard by their benches to selected benches headed by relatively junior Judges.
The meeting came after yesterday's impromptu meeting of almost all Supreme Court Judges – it wasn't a formal Full Court meeting though, where it was very clear that the bold stand taken by the four judges had widespread support among a vast majority of the other judges.
The CJI's olive branch comes a day after it came out that none of these Judges will be part of the Constitution Bench that will begin hearing the seven important cases, including challenge to criminalisation of homosexuality and a PIL on whether legislators facing criminal cases should be disqualified at the stage of charges being framed against them.
Sources said the CJI's move to reach out to the Judges could also be connected to the fact that the government had put the onus of setting his house – the highest judiciary – in order on him.
At the Friday's press conference, the four judges had also released a letter written by them, expressing their "anguish about recent judicial orders and erosion in the judicial independence of the Supreme Court".
In their letter, they had, while highlighted the manner in which cases were being assigned by the CJI, written, "There have been instances where case having far-reaching consequences for the Nation and the institution had been assigned by the Chief Justices of this Court selectively to the benches "of their preference" without any rationale basis for such assignment. This must be guarded against at all costs."
Their decision to go public came after their efforts to convince the CJI to take corrective measures failed.
A day after their public criticism, they had received support from several jurists, a former Supreme Court Judge and three retired Judges of high courts writing an open letter to CJI Misra, asking him that all sensitive and important cases, including pending ones, should be dealt with by a Constitution Bench of the five senior-most Judges only.
In their letter, former SC Judge PB Sawant, former Delhi HC CJ AP Shah, former Madras High Court Judge K Chandru and former Bombay HC Judge Hosbet Suresh have expressed concern over the improper allocation of cases to preferred benches by the CJI.
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 "Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra")
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