NEW DELHI: After holding talks with various judges of the
Supreme Court, including the Chief Justice of India, on the controversy sparked after four seniormost judges questioned the CJI over allottment of cases to benches, a panel of the
Bar council of India said that the judges assured it of resolving the rift.
The panel led by BCI head
Manan K Mishra met CJI Justice
Dipak Misra at his residence after holding meetings with various judges of the apex court including Justices J Chelameswar, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph.
After an almost hour-long meeting with the CJI, the BCI chairman said that the panel had talks with the judges in a very congenial atmosphere and all of them had assured him of sorting out the present problem soon.
Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president Vikas Singh also met Chief Justice of India and gave him a resolution passed by the association on Saturday.
SCBA passed a resolution and expressed "grave concern" over the differences of four seniormost judges with the CJI and asked for a full court discussion to defuse the present crisis plaguing the higher judiciary.
After a stormy weekend, the
SC will resume functioning on Monday.
As the CJI remained silent on the allegations levelled against him by his colleagues, all eyes will be focused on court No.1 to see whether he expresses his views on the issue or the controversy is mentioned before him on the judicial side.
Interestingly, the case pertaining to judge BH Loya's mysterious death, one of the issues flagged by the judges, will not be taken up. The case has been deferred as one of the judges of the bench, Justice M M Shantanagoudar, did not come on Monday.
A coordination committee of the Delhi district court bar associations termed as "unfortunate" the presser by four seniormost judges of the apex court and said it would take to the streets if the crisis was not resolved within 10 days.
The committee of lawyers from six district courts passed a resolution and said that an internal mechanism should be developed to settle such disputes in the judiciary.
"We, hereby, resolve that the Chief Justice of India should have kept his house in order and the grievances of the four seniormost judges should have been addressed by the CJI immediately. We also condemn the act of the four seniormost Supreme Court judges. They shouldn't have brought an internal matter into the public domain. They should have adopted other good and healthy options like approaching the Supreme Court Bar Association or senior advocates of Supreme Court or the President of India," the committee said in a press conference.
