Former law Minister and senior advocate Shanti Bhushan filed a petition on Friday challenging the supremacy of the Chief Justice of India to be the “master of roster”. Seeking clarification that the power exercised by the CJI to allocate matters to various benches should be in consultation with the Collegium judges comprising the next four senior most judges, Bhushan even demanded that his petition be heard by a bench of which CJI is not party.
The petition, drawn and filed by Shanti Bhushan’s son and advocate Prashant Bhushan, has listed 10 cases where the CJI exercised discretion in listing politically sensitive cases before a bench picked by him. Although the CJI recently constituted a bench of five judges to hold that CJI is master of roster and thus framed the Roster for listing Cases in Supreme Court, issued on February 1, the petition argued that such a decision cannot be accepted as CJI could not have passed an order where he was directly involved.
It said, “Master of Roster cannot be unguided and unbridled discretionary power, exercised arbitrarily by the Chief Justice of India by hand-picking benches of select Judges or by assigning cases to particular Judges….limiting the discretion of the CJI in allocating cases, in the absence of any procedure requiring consultation (with Collegium judges) and the absence of any substantive rules to prevent conflict, are the issues that need to be addressed for an improved administrative management of the Court.”
Citing the 10 cases, the veteran lawyer stated that the powers being exercised by the CJI and the SC Registry officials reflect a pattern of “favouritism, nepotism and forum shopping.” Since CJI administers these powers in his administrative capacity, the petitioner argued that such exercise of powers is also subject to judicial review.