NEW DELHI: Hours after failing to secure a copy of CJI Dipak Misra’s administrative order listing a petition by two
Rajya Sabha MPs of
Congress before a five-judge bench, advocate
Prashant Bhushan on Tuesday filed an application under the Right to Information Act in the SC registry and sought a copy of the order.
A bench of Justices A K Sikri, S A Bobde, N V Ramana, Arun Mishra and Adarsh Goel had brushed aside repeated requests by senior advocate Kapil Sibal and Bhushan for a copy of the CJI’s administrative order directing listing of the petition challenging the Rajya Sabha chairman’s decision to reject the notice for removal motion. Sibal said the petitioners wanted to challenge the administrative order as it was improper and legally untenable for the CJI to direct listing of a petition which concerned him.
The petition was dramatically withdrawn by Sibal without the main issues raised in it being argued. Sibal said, "If that order has been passed by the CJI constituting the bench, then the petitioners seek to challenge the order on such grounds as the petitioners may deem fit. It would be inappropriate for the petitioners to seek further indulgence of this court on the merits of this case till such time as such opportunity is afforded to the petitioners."
Less than three hours after the petition was withdrawn, Bhushan filed an
RTI application "as a citizen of India" with the SC’s chief public information officer Ajay Agrawal and sought to know whether the petition was listed before a Constitution bench on the basis of an administrative order; and if so, who passed the order. He sought a copy of it as well as permission to inspect file.
SC registry sources said more than a thousand petitions were listed before different benches every week. "If every petitioner starts asking for a copy of the administrative order seeking to know how her/his petition got listed before a particular bench for the purpose of challenging legality of listing, it will create an incongruent situation, both for the registry and the judges heading the benches," a source said.
A majority of petitions get listed as per the roster determined by the CJI. The roster allocates subject categories to different benches and computers automatically list petitions before the appropriate bench. However, as the master of roster, the CJI decides listing of matters of importance and allocates them to different benches.
On January 12, four seniormost judges led by Justice J Chelameswar had taken the unprecedented step of addressing the media at Justice Chelameswar’s residence to accuse the CJI of arbitrarily allocating matters of national importance, including the petition seeking probe into judge B H Loya’s death, to "select benches headed by junior judges".
