CJI Dipak Misra's brazenness has brought Supreme Court to disrepute, says Prashant Bhushan

A day after the Supreme Court saw some unprecedented scenes and drama over setting up a constitution bench to probe a medical admission scam, lawyer Prashant Bhushan today lashed out at Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra in a series of tweets.

Prabhasnt Bhushan said, "The Chief Justice of India, for the first time, has violated the most basic norm of any decision-making authority that no one shall be a judge in his or her own case. The brazenness with which the CJI has ridden roughshod over this has brought SC to disrepute."

Prashant Bhushan, who appeared before the Supreme Court constitution bench yesterday, further wrote, "For the CJI to move heaven and earth to prevent the senior five judges to SC to hear this case of CBI FIR alleging conspiracy to bribe bench which he presided over, is a very serious misconduct. He has violated basic principle of natural justice, that you can't be judge in your own cause."

Prashant Bhushan's angry response followed an evident tussle within top judiciary which came to the fore yesterday with the Supreme Court overturning the order of a two-judge bench to set up a larger bench to hear a graft case allegedly involving judges, asserting that Chief Justice of India was the "master of the roster".

WHAT HAPPENED IN SUPREME COURT?

The showdown was over the issue of supremacy of constituting a bench in which the authority of Chief Justice Dipak Misra was allegedly undermined by a bench of Justices J Chelameswar and S Abdul Nazeer, which had on Thursday set up a five-judge bench to hear a case of alleged bribery of judges in which a retired judge of Orissa High Court, Justice Ishrat Masroor Quddusi, is an accused.

Justice Chelameswar, who is the senior-most judge after the CJI, had ordered setting up of the five-judge bench of top judges of the apex court as a petition by an NGO and an advocate had claimed there were allegations against Justice Misra.

However, in a dramatic development, the CJI today set up a five-judge bench headed by him and overturned Thursday's order of the two-judge bench, saying the Chief Justice had the sole prerogative of setting up a bench and allocating matters.

'CJI IS THE BOSS'

In fast-paced events, the five-judge bench, also comprising Justices R K Agrawal, Arun Mishra, Amitava Roy and A M Khanwilkar, assembled at 3 PM and commenced an urgent hearing on the question as to who can direct the setting up of a bench of specific judges to hear a particular matter.

"There cannot be a command or an order directing the CJI to constitute a bench of specific strength," the bench said while making it clear that neither a two-judge, nor a three- judge bench can direct the CJI to constitute a specific bench.

"Needless to emphasis that no judge can take up a matter on its own unless allocated by the CJI as the CJI is master of the court," the bench said and annuled the decision of the two-judge bench, in the hearing which witnessed heated exchange of words between the judges and advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the petitioners.

"Any order passed contrary to this order (by the constitution bench) should not hold the field and shall be treated to be annulled," the CJI said in hard-hitting remarks while refusing the request of a lawyer to bar the media from reporting the case, saying he believed in "freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of press".

The bench said if the principle of law, judicial discipline and decorum of the court was not followed, there would be "anarchy" and "chaos" in the administration of justice as well as the functioning of the institution.

Perturbed by Thursday's order, the CJI, without taking names of the concerned judges, said there were hundreds of matters listed in the court daily and if the orders were passed like this, then the court cannot function.

(With PTI inputs)