NEW DELHI:
Four senior-most Supreme Court judges, who had held an unprecedented press conference and raised issue of assignment of cases, attended court and took up routine work.
The four judges — Justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph — have taken up their respective business on the first working day of the top court after the January 12 press conference. In the presser, these judges had flagged some problems, including the assigning of cases in the apex court, and said there were certain issues afflicting the country’s highest court.
Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra on Sunday assured a Bar Council of India delegation that the crisis in the Supreme Court resulting from a virtual revolt against him by four colleagues will be sorted out soon, the council chief said.
Also today, the son of special CBI judge B H Loya said in Mumbai that his father died of natural causes and not in suspicious circumstances. Loya’s death, while he was hearing the politically sensitive Shohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case, is the subject of a PIL in the Supreme Court that was one of the triggers for the revolt against Misra.
The Indian judiciary was thrown into a turmoil on Friday when four senior Supreme Court judges — J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, M B Lokur and Kurian Joseph convened an unprecedented press conference to complain about “selective” case allocation by Misra and passing of certain judicial order. Misra had assigned the Loya death PIL to Justice Arun Mishra, a relatively junior judge.
In their press conference, the four justices said India s democracy is at risk unless the wrongs in the Supreme Court are set right. Capping a weekend flurry of activity by jurists, lawyers and politicians, a delegation of the Bar Council of India, the highest body of lawyers in the nation, today met Misra at his residence for 50 minutes.
“We met CJI in a congenial atmosphere and he said everything will be sorted out soon,” BCI chairman Manan Kumar Mishra, who led the delegation, told reporters.
He said that before meeting the CJI, the panel also discussed the crisis plaguing the apex judiciary with other judges including the three out of the four judges who have made the allegations against Misra. Mishra said the panel met justices Chelameshwar, Lokur, and Joseph, who also gave an assurance that the crisis will be resolved.
He did not mention whether the panel had a meeting with Gogoi, who is out of town. Gogoi is next in line to succeed Misra as the chief justice.
Earlier, Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president Vikas Singh met the CJI and handed over a resolution in which the association has asked for a full court discussion to defuse the present crisis. “I met the CJI and handed over a copy of the resolution.
He said that he would look into it and ensure there was congeniality in the Supreme Court at the earliest,” Singh told PTI after his 15-minute meeting with the CJI.
In another major development, Anuj Loya, the son of the deceased CBI judge, held a press conference in Mumbai to say his family was “pained” by the recent developments surrounding his father’s death. He claimed NGOs and politicians should stop “harassing” his family members over the issue.
“My father died of natural causes. Our family is convinced that it was a natural death,” the 21-year-old Anuj told reporters, adding that although he and his family had earlier been suspicious about his father’s sudden death three years ago, they no longer harboured doubts. “I had an emotional turmoil, hence I had suspicions about his death. But now we don’t have any doubts about the way he died,” Anuj said.
“Earlier, my grandfather and aunt had some doubts about his death, which they shared. But now neither of them has any doubts,” he said. The deceased judge’s father and Anuj’s aunt had alleged foul play in his death.
Judge Loya, who was hearing the sensitive Sohrabuddin Sheikh “fake encounter” case, had allegedly died of a cardiac arrest in Nagpur on December 1, 2014, when he had gone to attend the wedding of a colleague’s daughter.
BJP chief Amit Shah was an accused in the case but has been discharged.
