Supreme Court: Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna has released a fresh roster for allocation of new cases for 16 benches. It has been decided that the first three courts headed by the CJI and the two senior-most judges will hear letter petitions and PILs. This roster has become effective from November 11.
Two senior judges will hear the latest petitions
A bench headed by two senior-most judges, Justice BR Gavai and Justice Surya Kant, will hear fresh petitions arising from letters written by citizens to the top court and new public interest litigations (PILs).
The judge bench will consider these cases also
Apart from letter petitions and PILs, the bench led by the Chief Justice will consider a maximum of issues subject-wise, including matters relating to social justice, disputes relating to the election of the President, Vice-President and other matters relating to the election of MPs and MLAs, habeas corpus matters. and arbitration cases. A bench headed by Justice Surya Kant will also hear election-related petitions.
Former CJI Chandrachud had changed the practice
Former Chief Justice UU Lalit used to allocate PILs to all the benches. But, former Chief Justice DY Chandrachud had stopped this practice. Subject-wise cases have been allocated to 16 senior judges who will preside over the benches. Justice JB Pardiwala, who was sharing the bench with former Chief Justice Chandrachud, will handle direct and indirect tax matters besides general civil matters.
These are 13 other justices
Apart from the three senior-most judges, including the CJI, the other 13 judges are Justice Hrishikesh Roy, Justice AS Oka, Justice Vikram Nath, Justice JK Maheshwari, Justice BV Nagarathna, Justice CT Ravikumar, Justice MM Sundaresh, Justice Bela M Trivedi, Justice PS Narasimha, Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia, Justice JB Pardiwala, Justice Dipankar Dutta and Justice Pankaj Mithal.