For the first time, Supreme Court’s top five judges will sit on summer vacation. Earlier, two judges sat on the vacation benches. It is expected that during vacation the court will hear Presidential Reference on timeline placed on Governors and the President on giving assent to Bills.
“The first five judges are sitting through the vacation and continuing to work, yet we are blamed for the backlog. In reality, it is the lawyers who are unwilling to work during the vacations,” said CJI BR Gavai on Wednesday. He was responding to an advocate seeking to adjourn the case to mid July, after vacation.
CJI Gavai said lawyers don’t want to work during vacation but the judiciary is blamed for the backlog of cases. A bench comprising Chief Justice B R Gavai and Justice Augustine George Masih got miffed when a lawyer urged listing of a petition after the summer vacation. Recently, the top court issued a notification on the benches that will function during the upcoming summer vacation, rechristened as “partial court working days”, from May 26 to July 13.
Significantly, there will be two to five vacation benches sitting during the partial court working days and even top five judges, including the CJI, will be holding courts during this period. According to earlier practice, there used to be only two vacation benches during the summer vacation, and senior judges were not supposed to hold courts. The notification outlined the weekly allocation of Justices across benches.
From May 26 to June 1, the CJI, Justices Suryakant, Vikram Nath J K Maheshwari and B V Nagarathna will be heading the five benches respectively. During this period, the apex court registry will remain open from 10 am to 5 pm for all officers and staff. The registry will be closed on all Saturdays (except July 12), Sundays, and public holidays.