Bar Association Meets To Discuss Rift Within Judiciary

New Delhi: The Supreme Court Bar Association is meeting right now to discuss the way forward after four of the country's most senior judges went public, questioning the conduct of the Chief Justice of India. Sources said the association feels that the judges should not have gone to the media and discussed the issue in full court meeting and sorted them out internally. The association also feels that the Chief Justice of India should have addressed the issues, sources said.

At an unprecedented press conference yesterday, the judges said they went public after their attempts to alert the Chief Justice to their concerns - including a meeting with him on Friday morning - had failed to make any progress.

At the press conference, held on the lawns of Justice J Chelameswar, the judges said "things are not in order" with what they described as "the administration of the Supreme Court".  Their concerns, the judges said, include cases of "far-reaching consequences" being allocated without transparency.

In a letter to the Chief Justice, they had raised concerns about "selective assignment of cases to preferred judges" and the allotment of sensitive cases to junior judges.

 As the "Master of the roster", the Chief Justice decides on the allotment of cases. But the judges said the Master of the Roster is only the "first among equals".

The Chief Justice has not responded on the issue. Denying the claims of the four judges, sources in the judiciary told NDTV that there is no bias and cases are distributed fairly among judges.

The BJP has insisted that it is an internal matter of the judiciary and attacked the Congress for what it called "politicizing" of the issue. In a two-page statement, the Congress has asked Supreme Court judges to jointly discuss the points flagged by the four judges.