CJI, 4 judges to meet today
BY M Post Bureau17 Jan 2018 11:32 PM IST
M Post Bureau17 Jan 2018 11:32 PM IST
NEW DELHI: Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra will meet the four senior judges who took him on publicly, on Thursday as part of the efforts at ending a rift that could impact important cases. The meeting, which was initially slated for Wednesday morning, did not take place as Justice Jasti Chelameswar is unwell and could not attend court. On Tuesday the chief justice had reached out to the dissenting judges and, in a 15-minute meeting, reportedly discussed "all issues" including their criticism of sensitive cases being assigned to junior judges. After that meeting sources claimed that "the ice has started melting".
The dissenting judges, who demand a stronger institution, have said: "something is happening and they are ready for a debate", sources said. They also asserted that Chief Justice Mishra has to come out with a plan solve this issue.
Justices Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan Lokur and Kurien Joseph, who are the country's senior-most after the Chief Justice, have been kept out of a constitution bench that will decide on eight crucial cases. One of them, a legal challenge to the Aadhaar system, which was taken up on Wednesday.
The case involving Judge BH Loya's death, which was one of the flashpoints for the unprecedented crisis, could be reassigned. The two judges who heard the case on Tuesday said in an order that the case is "put up before the appropriate Bench".
The four dissenting judges last week took the unusual step of addressing a press conference and voicing their concerns, warning that "without an independent judiciary, democracy will not survive". Cases of "far-reaching consequences", they said, were being assigned inappropriately.
The judges went public after the Loya case was assigned on Friday to Justice Arun Mishra, who is number 10 in terms of seniority at the Apex court.
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