Chief Justice of India opens PIL hearing for top five Supreme Court judges

Hearing of Public Interest Litigations (PIL) in the Supreme Court has been opened up for the first time to the four senior-most judges besides the Chief Justice of India (CJI).

However, the power to assign cases to the top four will continue to rest with the CJI.

Introducing this change in the Roster of Work for Fresh Cases, which is to be effective from July 1, CJI Ranjan Gogoi made a point by allowing the roster of hearing PILs and Letter Petitions to his other four senior colleagues.

Earlier, on October 3, soon after taking over as CJI, Justice Gogoi tweaked the existing judicial work roster by allowing the judge next in seniority to CJI to hear PILs assigned to him. This was an improvement from the system that existed till then where PILs remained the exclusive preserve of the CJI.

According to the new work roster, CJI Gogoi can assign hearing of PILs to Justice SA Bobde, Justice NV Ramana, Justice Arun Mishra and Justice RF Nariman.

The move is significant as Justice Gogoi was part of the historic press conference conducted by four sitting judges of the Supreme Court on January 12, 2018, when they came out in public against the then CJI Dipak Misra over arbitrary allocation of politically sensitive cases to select benches.

The judges had said that the rostering of cases by the CJI was such that it does not inspire confidence in the system and suggests that it was not fair, transparent or just

It was Justice Gogoi who, sitting with his other three colleagues – Justice Jasti Chelameswar, Justice Madan B Lokur and Justice Kurian Joseph (all since retired) at the press conference vented his criticism of the then CJI's allocation of the PIL relating to the death of judicial officer BH Loya who was hearing the Sohrabuddin encounter case, which involved then Gujarat Home Minister Amit Shah. Shah was later discharged from the case.

HOW IT WILL WORK

• Introducing this change in the Roster of Work for Fresh Cases, which is to be effective from July 1, CJI Ranjan Gogoi made a point by allowing the roster of hearing PILs and Letter Petitions to his other four senior colleagues
• According to the new work roster, CJI Gogoi can assign hearing of PILs to Justice SA Bobde, Justice NV Ramana, Justice Arun Mishra and Justice RF Nariman

—With inputs from Zee Media Newsroom