For the first time in the 73-year history of the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice of India’s courtroom along with those of the two most senior judges would be bereft of familiar sights – racks lined along the four walls filled with volumes of SC judgments since 1950 and towering piles of petitions on judges’ desks. Instead, welcoming the lawyers and litigants will be futuristic IT-enabled courtrooms.
According to reports, the new approach has been implemented to increase openness in the supreme court and also takes into account the justices’ subject-matter competence as well as the backlog and influx of cases.
According to the new roster, a bench consisting of CJI DY Chandrachud and the two senior-most justices, Justice SK Kaul and Justice Sanjiv Khanna, will consider new cases resulting from letters sent to the Supreme Court as well as new public interest litigations (PILs).
The earlier method, which former CJI UU Lalit instituted and in which PILs were distributed to all benches, is in sharp contrast to the new one.
The bench presided over by CJI DY Chandrachud will hear the most number of cases in terms of subject allocation, covering a range of topics such indirect taxation, service matters, criminal appeals, election petitions, corporate law, habeas corpus matters, and arbitration.
The CJI-led panel will also handle issues relating to the nomination of constitutional officials and judicial officers, the military forces, and admissions to educational institutions.
According to the updated roster, cases have been divided up among the Supreme Court’s several benches and will be presided over by 15 senior judges. Judges leading the benches include B R Gavai, Surya Kant, Aniruddha Bose, A S Bopanna, Krishna Murari, S Ravindra Bhat, Hrishikesh Roy, Abhay S Oka, Vikram Nath, J K Maheshwari, and Hima Kohli in addition to the Chief Justice of India and the two senior-most judges.
