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mare...antha aagamyagocharangaa undi. NCBN twaragaa seats finalize chesi election dookudu penchatam manchidi. Full public wave unte thappa ee dushtachatushtayam ni tattukovatam kashtam,.

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Contrary To SC’s Rules Of Assignment, At Least 8 Politically Sensitive Cases Moved To One Judge In 4 Months

Thursday, 7 Dec, 2023
16 min read
   
... Supreme Court of India/ WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

An analysis of eight politically sensitive cases shows they were moved to Justice Bela M Trivedi of the Supreme Court over the past four months, even though the rules of assignment say they should remain with the senior judge or before a judge hearing a similar case. Close to six years after four Supreme Court justices raised the issue of cases being assigned before a specific judge, senior lawyers have now questioned the manner of moving cases by the ‘master of the roster’, the Chief Justice of India.

New Delhi:  On 5 December 2023, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul’s bench in courtroom number 2 of the Supreme Court was slated to hear the case on the central government delaying appointments and transfers of judges. However, the case was deleted from the list, prompting the counsel for one of the petitioners to call the move “very strange”.

“I will just say one thing. I have not deleted the matter,” Justice Kaul said in court. “I am sure the Chief Justice knows about it…some things are best left unsaid, sometimes.”

A few days after his swearing-in in November 2022, the Chief Justice of India and master of the roster, Dhananjaya Chandrachud, remarked that he is keeping a “close watch on the listing of cases”.

The privilege and the administrative power of the Chief Justice of a court to constitute benches and allocate cases at their absolute discretion is called the ‘master of roster’ system. 

Without any transparency or guidelines to keep a check on the misuse of this discretionary power, concerns and speculations arise about potential government influence whenever bench assignments align with government interests.

Our analysis of eight cases before benches either consisting of Justice Bela Madhurya Trivedi or presided over by her reveals violations of the 2017 Supreme Court Handbook on Practice and Procedure And Office Procedure, which says cases should be retained before the senior judge before whom the case was first listed or listed before a judge hearing a similar case. 

These are Umar Khalid’s bail plea, petitions challenging provisions of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA)1967; petitions challenging dismissal of a fresh investigation against former Tamil Nadu chief minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami for alleged involvement in a highway tender scandal; two petitions connected to a skill development scam in which former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu is a co-accused; a petition connected with the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) probe in a disproportionate assets case against deputy chief minister of Karnataka D K Shivakumar; a medical bail plea filed by jailed Tamil Nadu minister Senthil Balaji;  and a bail plea of Bhima-Koregaon violence case co-accused Mahesh Raut.

In an unprecedented move in 2018, four senior judges of the Supreme Court questioned the allocation of cases by the then Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra, alleging the Chief Justice had selectively assigned cases of significant national and institutional consequence to benches of his preference without any apparent rational basis.

“I do not have any objection to the master of the roster allocating cases,” retired Supreme Court judge Justice Madan B Lokur, also one of the four judges in the 2018 press conference, told Article 14. “However, a clear principle needs to be followed that the case remains with the presiding judge until he or she retires. This was the principle that was being followed ever since.”

“The shifting of cases from one Bench to another is wrong and sends a wrong signal. It should definitely be avoided,” said Lokur.

Questions sent to the Chief Justice and phone calls to the Registrar of Listing on 4 and 5 December did not elicit a response.

Lawyers Raise Objections 

In the last two weeks, two senior lawyers have written about politically sensitive cases being listed and shifted. 

In his column for the New Indian Express on 27 November 2023, former law minister of India and senior advocate Kapil Sibal wrote, “The other key concern is the manner in which live yet sensitive cases are transferred and shifted to a bench which did not hear the matter earlier”.

“All is not well even in the Supreme Court. The constitution of benches and allocation of cases has left a lot to be desired. As a result, justice is sometimes skewed,” senior advocate Dushyant Dave wrote in a 29 November 2023 column for The Indian Express.

Dave called upon the Chief Justice of India to “turn more of his attention to these issues”.

In a letter to the Chief Justice on 6 December, citing the Supreme Court handbook and established practice and convention, Dave wrote, “Sir, this does not augur well for the Institution of Supreme Court of India under your Leadership. The Institution is highly respected by all. That respect must continue forever, in all respects. I would therefore urge you to look into this immediately and take corrective measures.” 

... Justice Bela M Trivedi

Cases Before Trivedi On 29 November 

Sworn in as a Supreme Court justice on 31 August 2021, Trivedi, 63, is currently the 16th senior-most judge out of the 34 total judges and one of the 17 presiding judges leading a bench. 

The accompanying judges with lower seniority than the presiding judge keep changing over time.

Trivedi, the first woman judge from the Gujarat High Court elevated to the apex court, served as the law secretary in the government of Narendra Modi, who was the chief minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014. 

On 29 November, of the three politically charged cases in Trivedi’s court that day, the first was a challenge filed by the Tamil Nadu government against a Madras High Court judgement that dismissed a fresh probe against former Tamil Nadu chief minister Palaniswami in an alleged state highway tender scam.

Palaniswami belongs to the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), the party in power in the state, is in opposition to both.

The second was a challenge to a Delhi High Court judgement denying bail to Khalid, a political activist, who has been in jail for more than three years for his alleged role in the February 2020 Delhi riots.

Tagged to Khalid’s petition were a bunch of petitions challenging the constitutionality of various provisions of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) 1967, India’s anti-terror law, infamous for its misuse against journalists, activists, and critics of the government.

A common thread that ran across the proceedings in these three cases was the petitioners’ surprise and objection to the listing of their cases before a bench led by Justice Trivedi, currently comprising newly sworn-in Justice Satish Chandra Sharma.

These cases were previously being heard by a bench led by other senior judges, of which, sometimes, Justice Trivedi would be the accompanying judge.

“It is wrong that matters before Justice Aniruddha Bose are being listed here,” Dave, representing the Tamil Nadu government, told Justice Trivedi, Bar & Bench, a legal news website, reported on 29 November.

Resisting Reform 

Despite the unprecedented judges’ press conference in 2018, there were no subsequent reforms or checks implemented on the Chief Justice’s master of roster powers.

A few months after the judges’ press conference, the Supreme Court dismissed a petition that sought the establishment of a more rational and transparent system for listing and reallocating matters to benches. A bench of Justice A K Sikri and Justice Ashok Bhushan defended the Chief Justice’s master of roster powers by stating that it is “based on healthy practise to maintain discipline and decorum of the Court”.

Although much has been written about the need to place curbs on the Chief Justice’s master of roster powers, with repeated instances of case reallocations from benches critical of the government (here, here, here) coming out in public, reforms or actions addressing this concern remain elusive.

Violation Of The Rules 

Rule number 6 under ‘Cases, Coram and Listing’ of the ‘Supreme Court Handbook On Practice And Procedure And Office Procedure’ mandates that “If first coram [the presiding judge] is not available on a particular day on account of retirement, the case shall be listed before the judge constituting the second coram [the next senior most accompanying judge on the bench]. If a second coram is also unavailable, the case shall not be listed on that day.”

In his letter to the Chief Justice, Dave said, “Matters listed before Court No. 2, 4, 6, 7 amongst others have been shifted out and listed before other Hon'ble Benches in clear disregard to the rules”.

Dave noted that the Chief Justice “cannot exercise power to take away any case” unless the senior judge on the bench becomes unavailable due to retirement.

Sibal’s column also said that “there is an established practice that the bench which issues notice in the matter should hear the matter till fruition unless the judge concerned retires in the meantime or recuses himself”.

The Tamil Nadu Case 

However, our analysis has found that cases were not being listed according to this rule and convention.

For instance, the Tamil Nadu government’s challenge in Palaniswami’s case was being heard by a bench led by Justice Bose, comprising Justice Trivedi. 

As per the convention and rule number 6, the matter ought to have continued before Justice Bose’s bench. 

However, on 29 November, the case was listed before a bench led by Justice Trivedi.

“You are aware of the accepted and healthy practice followed by this Hon’ble Court for decades in this regard which would also command that the matter be listed before the bench presided by the Senior Judge only, and it would not be proper to be listed before the other Ld. Judge when the Senior Judge is available,” the Tamil Nadu government’s counsel said in a letter to the Supreme Court registry.

UAPA Challenges 

Petitions challenging the Tripura police’s action to book journalists and lawyers under UAPA over their social media posts and reports about the communal violence that took place in the state in the third week of October 2021 were being heard by the Chief Justice’s court. 

Tagged along with these were petitions challenging the constitutionality of certain provisions of the UAPA, which were pending before Justice Sanjiv Khanna and the Chief Justice.

However, on 29 November 2023, all these matters were reallocated before a Justice Trivedi-led bench, bypassing 15 more senior judges. 

When senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, one of the lawyers in the case of the Tripura police action against journalists, pointed this out and suggested that the bench ordered the matter to be placed before the Chief Justice’s bench for “clarification”, Justice Trivedi refused.

“These matters have been listed before us,” Justice Trivedi was reported to have said. “We are bound to hear. If you have any reservations, you can mention before the CJI.”

Umar Khalid’s Bail Plea

The manner in which the bail matter of Khalid, the political activist, progressed also fell foul of the Supreme Court’s rules and convention.

Initially, Khalid’s plea was listed before Justice A S Bopanna, currently the seventh in seniority after Justice Bose. On 9 August, the accompanying judge on the bench, Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra, recused himself from the case.

On 18 August, the case was moved from Justice Bopanna’s bench (although Justice Bopanna did not ask for the case to be shifted, only to be put before him in some other combination) to a bench led by Justice Bose—comprising Justice Trivedi.

However, on 12 October, Khalid’s plea was moved from Justice Bose’s bench and listed before a bench led by Justice Trivedi, then comprising Justice Dipankar Datta. 

Although the counsels for Khalid wanted to argue the matter before Justice Trivedi on that day, the bench adjourned the case to the next month.

Khalid’s case now continues to remain before Justice Trivedi-led bench.

In October, Khalid separately filed a petition challenging the constitutionality of certain UAPA provisions, similar to the pending petitions filed in the Tripura case.

Since similar matters were pending before the Chief Justice’s and Justice Khanna’s courts, Khalid’s petition should have been tagged with the old pending challenges and made its way to Chief Justice’s court. 

Under ‘Coram By Filing Counter’ rule number 1 of the Supreme Court handbook, subject to the orders of the court, every case arising out of or relating to “sequel or identical, having same status, or similar matter” and arises from “same cause of action” are required to be “tagged or linked together and the same coram be updated for listing with office report”. 

Khalid’s petition did not make it to the same coram, as required by this rule.

However, the case was listed before a bench led by Justice Bose and comprising Justice Trivedi. 

When Khalid’s case was listed on 20 October for the first time, the bench ordered Khalid’s challenge to be tagged along with the pending matters.

When Khalid’s challenge to the UAPA provisions was taken up on the next date of hearing, on 31 October, the bench ordered all the UAPA challenges, including Khalid’s new challenge, to be “taken up together” along with Khalid’s bail plea and to be “listed before the appropriate bench”.

By this time, Khalid’s bail plea had shifted to Justice Trivedi’s bench and remained with her.

... (SS of 31 Oct order by Justice Bose & Trivedi bench)

A month later, the Supreme Court registry, which is under the Chief Justice’s control, determined the “appropriate bench” to be Justice Trivedi-led bench. 

Despite Bhushan, one of the counsels in the UAPA case, bringing this ambiguity to Justice Trivedi’s attention on 29 November, she refused to place the matters before the Chief Justice for “clarification”, as suggested by him.

Trivedi orally asked Bhushan to mention the matter before the Chief Justice if he had “reservations”.

The Supreme Court Judge’s Roster does not mention Public Interest Litigations (PILs) to be part of Justice Trivedi’s roster. 

Despite this, some challenges to the UAPA provisions which are PILs, including the one filed by the Foundation of Media Professionals, were shifted before her.

“The undemocratic nature of the powers of the master of the roster is not purposeful. It is to decide the outcome of the case,” former Madras High Court judge Justice K Chandru told Article 14.

“Over some time, the Chief Justice would know which judge thinks in what manner. It happened during my time as a judge in the Madras High Court as well. The chief used to assign some cases to me where he wanted a specific result, while in some others where he did not want a specific result, he avoided assigning it to me. This should be opposed,” said Chandru. 

“There should be a collegium to decide the roster for judges. It should not be left to an individual,” he said.

D K Shivakumar’s Case

Deputy chief minister of Karnataka Shivakumar’s case is also one of those that shifted to a Justice Trivedi-led bench.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had challenged a 12 June 2023 decision of the Karnataka High Court that granted an interim stay on an investigation against Shivakumar in a disproportionate assets case.

The case was first listed on 22 September before Justice Bose’s bench, consisting of Justice Trivedi. However, on the third date of hearing—7 November—the case was pulled out from Justice Bose’s court and listed before a Justice Trivedi-led bench, despite Justice Bose not having retired or made a specific order to recuse.

Just three days after Shivakumar’s case was listed before Justice Trivedi’s court, a final order was passed in the CBI’s petition.

Although Justice Trivedi’s bench, consisting of Justice Sharma, refused to interfere with the High Court’s interim relief to Shivakumar, it asked the High Court to decide the CBI’s application for removing the interim stay on Shivakumar’s investigation “preferably within two weeks”. 

The Case Of Mahesh Raut

A similar pattern is visible in the incarcerated Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad violence case accused Raut’s bail plea.

Raut, who is a researcher and forest rights activist, was arrested in June 2018 by the Pune police for his alleged connection with the violence that broke out on 1 January 2018, in Bhima Koregaon village near Pune. 

Sixteen persons were charge-sheeted under the UAPA.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which has since taken over the probe, has accused him of spreading “Maoist ideology” and encouraging “anti-national activities”. 

On 21 September this year, the Bombay High Court granted bail to Raut, who had already spent more than five years as an undertrial in jail. The court stated that it found no “reasonable grounds for believing that the accusations against the Appellant are prima facie true”. It also termed certain evidence relied upon by the NIA to be “hearsay” in nature.

However, the court granted a one-week stay on its judgement to allow the NIA to appeal the case before the Supreme Court.

On 27 September, the case was first listed before Justice Bose’s bench, consisting of Justice Trivedi. 

On 6 November, the bench directed the case to be listed on 28 November. 

However, the Supreme Court website now indicates that the case has been shifted to Justice Trivedi’s courtroom without Justice Bose making any order to that effect.

Justice Bose, in July this year, granted bail to two other co-accused in the same case—Vernon Gonsalves & Arun Ferreira, considering their long period of incarceration. His bench, currently consisting of Justice Augustine George Masih, is also considering an interim bail application filed by another co-accused, Shoma Sen.

“When I was in the Delhi High Court, if there was a case in which there were five accused and one of them filed a bail plea, the FIR number would be mentioned in the listing proforma so that subsequent bail pleas filed by other accused go before the same judge,” Justice Lokur said.

“This was a salutary practice intended to avoid getting conflicting orders in the same case and, more importantly, to avoid Bench hunting. Otherwise, accused A may get bail and accused B may not. It’s the same in the Supreme Court. I don’t see why a case emanating from the same FIR should go before different judges, it should go before the same judge who is dealing with that FIR,” said Lokur. 

“Bench hunting brings disrepute to the system,” he said. 

Similar Cases Before Another Bench

Our analysis of eight cases before Justice Trivedi showed two politically charged cases being listed before a bench comprising Justice Trivedi despite similar cases being heard or pending before another bench.

On 23 September 2023, before the Supreme Court, Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu challenged a decision of the Andhra Pradesh High Court that refused to quash a first information report (FIR) filed against him in the alleged 370-crore Skill Development scam.

The allegations against Naidu date back to 2014, shortly after his party, the Telugu Desam Party, won the state. The police, under the Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party government—a friendly party to the BJP—alleged syphoning off funds from the Skill Development Corporation set up by Naidu’s government.

73-year-old Naidu was arrested on 9 September by the Andhra Pradesh crime investigation department (APCID), after which he mounted legal challenges and sought bail.

When Naidu filed his petition, another bench of the Supreme Court led by Justice Abhay S Oka was seized of a similar matter also concerning the skill development case.

When Naidu’s plea was filed, the office report of an assistant registrar of the Supreme Court noted that a “similar” case filed by one of the co-accused, Ganti Venkata Satya Bhaskar Prasad, in the same FIR as Naidu’s, was pending before Justice Oka’s bench. 

Prasad had eventually obtained an anticipatory bail.

However, Naidu’s plea did not make it to Oka’s bench but was listed before a bench headed by Justice Aniruddha Bose, comprising Justice Trivedi. The bench rejected Naidu’s plea for interim bail and reserved its judgement on his FIR quashing plea, which is yet to be delivered.

Similarly, a month after the Supreme Court rejected Naidu’s interim bail plea, the Andhra Pradesh High Court accepted Naidu’s application for regular bail on 20 November.

The next day, on 21 November, the AP CID challenged the grant of regular bail to Naidu by the High Court.

Even though the Justice Bose-led bench—then consisting of Justice Trivedi and now consisting of Justice Augustine George Masih—had extensively heard the skill-development- scam case, including Naidu’s case, APCID’s challenge has now been listed before the Justice Trivedi-led bench.

Case Following Junior Judge

Our study also revealed one politically charged case which was listed before a bench consisting of Justice Trivedi, despite similar matters either pending or already adjudicated by a different bench, and later shifted to a Justice Trivedi-led bench. 

Even though the bench headed by Justice Bopanna, the seventh senior-most judge, earlier heard the case of incarcerated DMK Minister Senthil Balaji’s money laundering case, a fresh medical bail plea filed by him in mid-October 2023 was listed before Justice Bose’s bench, comprising Justice Trivedi.

The office report of the Supreme Court had noted that a similar case was earlier heard and judged by Justice Bopanna’s bench. Yet, the case was listed before Justice Bose and Trivedi.

Balaji’s bail plea ultimately shifted from Justice Bose’s bench to Justice Trivedi’s on the second date of the hearing without any explanation, despite Justice Bose having directed the matter to be listed on 20 November, twenty days after he first heard the case.

On 28 November, the Justice Trivedi-led bench, comprising Justice Sharma, the newly sworn-in judge, observed that Balaji’s “sickness is not serious”, with Justice Trivedi taking support of her Google search results to conclude that Balaji’s sickness  “can be cured by medication”.

Balaji’s counsel sought to withdraw the medical bail plea and apply for regular bail at the Madras High Court, to which the bench agreed.

(Saurav Das is an independent investigative journalist)

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2 hours ago, sonykongara said:

Contrary To SC’s Rules Of Assignment, At Least 8 Politically Sensitive Cases Moved To One Judge In 4 Months

Thursday, 7 Dec, 2023
16 min read
   
... Supreme Court of India/ WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

An analysis of eight politically sensitive cases shows they were moved to Justice Bela M Trivedi of the Supreme Court over the past four months, even though the rules of assignment say they should remain with the senior judge or before a judge hearing a similar case. Close to six years after four Supreme Court justices raised the issue of cases being assigned before a specific judge, senior lawyers have now questioned the manner of moving cases by the ‘master of the roster’, the Chief Justice of India.

New Delhi:  On 5 December 2023, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul’s bench in courtroom number 2 of the Supreme Court was slated to hear the case on the central government delaying appointments and transfers of judges. However, the case was deleted from the list, prompting the counsel for one of the petitioners to call the move “very strange”.

“I will just say one thing. I have not deleted the matter,” Justice Kaul said in court. “I am sure the Chief Justice knows about it…some things are best left unsaid, sometimes.”

A few days after his swearing-in in November 2022, the Chief Justice of India and master of the roster, Dhananjaya Chandrachud, remarked that he is keeping a “close watch on the listing of cases”.

The privilege and the administrative power of the Chief Justice of a court to constitute benches and allocate cases at their absolute discretion is called the ‘master of roster’ system. 

Without any transparency or guidelines to keep a check on the misuse of this discretionary power, concerns and speculations arise about potential government influence whenever bench assignments align with government interests.

Our analysis of eight cases before benches either consisting of Justice Bela Madhurya Trivedi or presided over by her reveals violations of the 2017 Supreme Court Handbook on Practice and Procedure And Office Procedure, which says cases should be retained before the senior judge before whom the case was first listed or listed before a judge hearing a similar case. 

These are Umar Khalid’s bail plea, petitions challenging provisions of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA)1967; petitions challenging dismissal of a fresh investigation against former Tamil Nadu chief minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami for alleged involvement in a highway tender scandal; two petitions connected to a skill development scam in which former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu is a co-accused; a petition connected with the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) probe in a disproportionate assets case against deputy chief minister of Karnataka D K Shivakumar; a medical bail plea filed by jailed Tamil Nadu minister Senthil Balaji;  and a bail plea of Bhima-Koregaon violence case co-accused Mahesh Raut.

In an unprecedented move in 2018, four senior judges of the Supreme Court questioned the allocation of cases by the then Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra, alleging the Chief Justice had selectively assigned cases of significant national and institutional consequence to benches of his preference without any apparent rational basis.

“I do not have any objection to the master of the roster allocating cases,” retired Supreme Court judge Justice Madan B Lokur, also one of the four judges in the 2018 press conference, told Article 14. “However, a clear principle needs to be followed that the case remains with the presiding judge until he or she retires. This was the principle that was being followed ever since.”

“The shifting of cases from one Bench to another is wrong and sends a wrong signal. It should definitely be avoided,” said Lokur.

Questions sent to the Chief Justice and phone calls to the Registrar of Listing on 4 and 5 December did not elicit a response.

Lawyers Raise Objections 

In the last two weeks, two senior lawyers have written about politically sensitive cases being listed and shifted. 

In his column for the New Indian Express on 27 November 2023, former law minister of India and senior advocate Kapil Sibal wrote, “The other key concern is the manner in which live yet sensitive cases are transferred and shifted to a bench which did not hear the matter earlier”.

“All is not well even in the Supreme Court. The constitution of benches and allocation of cases has left a lot to be desired. As a result, justice is sometimes skewed,” senior advocate Dushyant Dave wrote in a 29 November 2023 column for The Indian Express.

Dave called upon the Chief Justice of India to “turn more of his attention to these issues”.

In a letter to the Chief Justice on 6 December, citing the Supreme Court handbook and established practice and convention, Dave wrote, “Sir, this does not augur well for the Institution of Supreme Court of India under your Leadership. The Institution is highly respected by all. That respect must continue forever, in all respects. I would therefore urge you to look into this immediately and take corrective measures.” 

... Justice Bela M Trivedi

Cases Before Trivedi On 29 November 

Sworn in as a Supreme Court justice on 31 August 2021, Trivedi, 63, is currently the 16th senior-most judge out of the 34 total judges and one of the 17 presiding judges leading a bench. 

The accompanying judges with lower seniority than the presiding judge keep changing over time.

Trivedi, the first woman judge from the Gujarat High Court elevated to the apex court, served as the law secretary in the government of Narendra Modi, who was the chief minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014. 

On 29 November, of the three politically charged cases in Trivedi’s court that day, the first was a challenge filed by the Tamil Nadu government against a Madras High Court judgement that dismissed a fresh probe against former Tamil Nadu chief minister Palaniswami in an alleged state highway tender scam.

Palaniswami belongs to the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), the party in power in the state, is in opposition to both.

The second was a challenge to a Delhi High Court judgement denying bail to Khalid, a political activist, who has been in jail for more than three years for his alleged role in the February 2020 Delhi riots.

Tagged to Khalid’s petition were a bunch of petitions challenging the constitutionality of various provisions of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) 1967, India’s anti-terror law, infamous for its misuse against journalists, activists, and critics of the government.

A common thread that ran across the proceedings in these three cases was the petitioners’ surprise and objection to the listing of their cases before a bench led by Justice Trivedi, currently comprising newly sworn-in Justice Satish Chandra Sharma.

These cases were previously being heard by a bench led by other senior judges, of which, sometimes, Justice Trivedi would be the accompanying judge.

“It is wrong that matters before Justice Aniruddha Bose are being listed here,” Dave, representing the Tamil Nadu government, told Justice Trivedi, Bar & Bench, a legal news website, reported on 29 November.

Resisting Reform 

Despite the unprecedented judges’ press conference in 2018, there were no subsequent reforms or checks implemented on the Chief Justice’s master of roster powers.

A few months after the judges’ press conference, the Supreme Court dismissed a petition that sought the establishment of a more rational and transparent system for listing and reallocating matters to benches. A bench of Justice A K Sikri and Justice Ashok Bhushan defended the Chief Justice’s master of roster powers by stating that it is “based on healthy practise to maintain discipline and decorum of the Court”.

Although much has been written about the need to place curbs on the Chief Justice’s master of roster powers, with repeated instances of case reallocations from benches critical of the government (here, here, here) coming out in public, reforms or actions addressing this concern remain elusive.

Violation Of The Rules 

Rule number 6 under ‘Cases, Coram and Listing’ of the ‘Supreme Court Handbook On Practice And Procedure And Office Procedure’ mandates that “If first coram [the presiding judge] is not available on a particular day on account of retirement, the case shall be listed before the judge constituting the second coram [the next senior most accompanying judge on the bench]. If a second coram is also unavailable, the case shall not be listed on that day.”

In his letter to the Chief Justice, Dave said, “Matters listed before Court No. 2, 4, 6, 7 amongst others have been shifted out and listed before other Hon'ble Benches in clear disregard to the rules”.

Dave noted that the Chief Justice “cannot exercise power to take away any case” unless the senior judge on the bench becomes unavailable due to retirement.

Sibal’s column also said that “there is an established practice that the bench which issues notice in the matter should hear the matter till fruition unless the judge concerned retires in the meantime or recuses himself”.

The Tamil Nadu Case 

However, our analysis has found that cases were not being listed according to this rule and convention.

For instance, the Tamil Nadu government’s challenge in Palaniswami’s case was being heard by a bench led by Justice Bose, comprising Justice Trivedi. 

As per the convention and rule number 6, the matter ought to have continued before Justice Bose’s bench. 

However, on 29 November, the case was listed before a bench led by Justice Trivedi.

“You are aware of the accepted and healthy practice followed by this Hon’ble Court for decades in this regard which would also command that the matter be listed before the bench presided by the Senior Judge only, and it would not be proper to be listed before the other Ld. Judge when the Senior Judge is available,” the Tamil Nadu government’s counsel said in a letter to the Supreme Court registry.

UAPA Challenges 

Petitions challenging the Tripura police’s action to book journalists and lawyers under UAPA over their social media posts and reports about the communal violence that took place in the state in the third week of October 2021 were being heard by the Chief Justice’s court. 

Tagged along with these were petitions challenging the constitutionality of certain provisions of the UAPA, which were pending before Justice Sanjiv Khanna and the Chief Justice.

However, on 29 November 2023, all these matters were reallocated before a Justice Trivedi-led bench, bypassing 15 more senior judges. 

When senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, one of the lawyers in the case of the Tripura police action against journalists, pointed this out and suggested that the bench ordered the matter to be placed before the Chief Justice’s bench for “clarification”, Justice Trivedi refused.

“These matters have been listed before us,” Justice Trivedi was reported to have said. “We are bound to hear. If you have any reservations, you can mention before the CJI.”

Umar Khalid’s Bail Plea

The manner in which the bail matter of Khalid, the political activist, progressed also fell foul of the Supreme Court’s rules and convention.

Initially, Khalid’s plea was listed before Justice A S Bopanna, currently the seventh in seniority after Justice Bose. On 9 August, the accompanying judge on the bench, Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra, recused himself from the case.

On 18 August, the case was moved from Justice Bopanna’s bench (although Justice Bopanna did not ask for the case to be shifted, only to be put before him in some other combination) to a bench led by Justice Bose—comprising Justice Trivedi.

However, on 12 October, Khalid’s plea was moved from Justice Bose’s bench and listed before a bench led by Justice Trivedi, then comprising Justice Dipankar Datta. 

Although the counsels for Khalid wanted to argue the matter before Justice Trivedi on that day, the bench adjourned the case to the next month.

Khalid’s case now continues to remain before Justice Trivedi-led bench.

In October, Khalid separately filed a petition challenging the constitutionality of certain UAPA provisions, similar to the pending petitions filed in the Tripura case.

Since similar matters were pending before the Chief Justice’s and Justice Khanna’s courts, Khalid’s petition should have been tagged with the old pending challenges and made its way to Chief Justice’s court. 

Under ‘Coram By Filing Counter’ rule number 1 of the Supreme Court handbook, subject to the orders of the court, every case arising out of or relating to “sequel or identical, having same status, or similar matter” and arises from “same cause of action” are required to be “tagged or linked together and the same coram be updated for listing with office report”. 

Khalid’s petition did not make it to the same coram, as required by this rule.

However, the case was listed before a bench led by Justice Bose and comprising Justice Trivedi. 

When Khalid’s case was listed on 20 October for the first time, the bench ordered Khalid’s challenge to be tagged along with the pending matters.

When Khalid’s challenge to the UAPA provisions was taken up on the next date of hearing, on 31 October, the bench ordered all the UAPA challenges, including Khalid’s new challenge, to be “taken up together” along with Khalid’s bail plea and to be “listed before the appropriate bench”.

By this time, Khalid’s bail plea had shifted to Justice Trivedi’s bench and remained with her.

... (SS of 31 Oct order by Justice Bose & Trivedi bench)

A month later, the Supreme Court registry, which is under the Chief Justice’s control, determined the “appropriate bench” to be Justice Trivedi-led bench. 

Despite Bhushan, one of the counsels in the UAPA case, bringing this ambiguity to Justice Trivedi’s attention on 29 November, she refused to place the matters before the Chief Justice for “clarification”, as suggested by him.

Trivedi orally asked Bhushan to mention the matter before the Chief Justice if he had “reservations”.

The Supreme Court Judge’s Roster does not mention Public Interest Litigations (PILs) to be part of Justice Trivedi’s roster. 

Despite this, some challenges to the UAPA provisions which are PILs, including the one filed by the Foundation of Media Professionals, were shifted before her.

“The undemocratic nature of the powers of the master of the roster is not purposeful. It is to decide the outcome of the case,” former Madras High Court judge Justice K Chandru told Article 14.

“Over some time, the Chief Justice would know which judge thinks in what manner. It happened during my time as a judge in the Madras High Court as well. The chief used to assign some cases to me where he wanted a specific result, while in some others where he did not want a specific result, he avoided assigning it to me. This should be opposed,” said Chandru. 

“There should be a collegium to decide the roster for judges. It should not be left to an individual,” he said.

D K Shivakumar’s Case

Deputy chief minister of Karnataka Shivakumar’s case is also one of those that shifted to a Justice Trivedi-led bench.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had challenged a 12 June 2023 decision of the Karnataka High Court that granted an interim stay on an investigation against Shivakumar in a disproportionate assets case.

The case was first listed on 22 September before Justice Bose’s bench, consisting of Justice Trivedi. However, on the third date of hearing—7 November—the case was pulled out from Justice Bose’s court and listed before a Justice Trivedi-led bench, despite Justice Bose not having retired or made a specific order to recuse.

Just three days after Shivakumar’s case was listed before Justice Trivedi’s court, a final order was passed in the CBI’s petition.

Although Justice Trivedi’s bench, consisting of Justice Sharma, refused to interfere with the High Court’s interim relief to Shivakumar, it asked the High Court to decide the CBI’s application for removing the interim stay on Shivakumar’s investigation “preferably within two weeks”. 

The Case Of Mahesh Raut

A similar pattern is visible in the incarcerated Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad violence case accused Raut’s bail plea.

Raut, who is a researcher and forest rights activist, was arrested in June 2018 by the Pune police for his alleged connection with the violence that broke out on 1 January 2018, in Bhima Koregaon village near Pune. 

Sixteen persons were charge-sheeted under the UAPA.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which has since taken over the probe, has accused him of spreading “Maoist ideology” and encouraging “anti-national activities”. 

On 21 September this year, the Bombay High Court granted bail to Raut, who had already spent more than five years as an undertrial in jail. The court stated that it found no “reasonable grounds for believing that the accusations against the Appellant are prima facie true”. It also termed certain evidence relied upon by the NIA to be “hearsay” in nature.

However, the court granted a one-week stay on its judgement to allow the NIA to appeal the case before the Supreme Court.

On 27 September, the case was first listed before Justice Bose’s bench, consisting of Justice Trivedi. 

On 6 November, the bench directed the case to be listed on 28 November. 

However, the Supreme Court website now indicates that the case has been shifted to Justice Trivedi’s courtroom without Justice Bose making any order to that effect.

Justice Bose, in July this year, granted bail to two other co-accused in the same case—Vernon Gonsalves & Arun Ferreira, considering their long period of incarceration. His bench, currently consisting of Justice Augustine George Masih, is also considering an interim bail application filed by another co-accused, Shoma Sen.

“When I was in the Delhi High Court, if there was a case in which there were five accused and one of them filed a bail plea, the FIR number would be mentioned in the listing proforma so that subsequent bail pleas filed by other accused go before the same judge,” Justice Lokur said.

“This was a salutary practice intended to avoid getting conflicting orders in the same case and, more importantly, to avoid Bench hunting. Otherwise, accused A may get bail and accused B may not. It’s the same in the Supreme Court. I don’t see why a case emanating from the same FIR should go before different judges, it should go before the same judge who is dealing with that FIR,” said Lokur. 

“Bench hunting brings disrepute to the system,” he said. 

Similar Cases Before Another Bench

Our analysis of eight cases before Justice Trivedi showed two politically charged cases being listed before a bench comprising Justice Trivedi despite similar cases being heard or pending before another bench.

On 23 September 2023, before the Supreme Court, Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu challenged a decision of the Andhra Pradesh High Court that refused to quash a first information report (FIR) filed against him in the alleged 370-crore Skill Development scam.

The allegations against Naidu date back to 2014, shortly after his party, the Telugu Desam Party, won the state. The police, under the Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party government—a friendly party to the BJP—alleged syphoning off funds from the Skill Development Corporation set up by Naidu’s government.

73-year-old Naidu was arrested on 9 September by the Andhra Pradesh crime investigation department (APCID), after which he mounted legal challenges and sought bail.

When Naidu filed his petition, another bench of the Supreme Court led by Justice Abhay S Oka was seized of a similar matter also concerning the skill development case.

When Naidu’s plea was filed, the office report of an assistant registrar of the Supreme Court noted that a “similar” case filed by one of the co-accused, Ganti Venkata Satya Bhaskar Prasad, in the same FIR as Naidu’s, was pending before Justice Oka’s bench. 

Prasad had eventually obtained an anticipatory bail.

However, Naidu’s plea did not make it to Oka’s bench but was listed before a bench headed by Justice Aniruddha Bose, comprising Justice Trivedi. The bench rejected Naidu’s plea for interim bail and reserved its judgement on his FIR quashing plea, which is yet to be delivered.

Similarly, a month after the Supreme Court rejected Naidu’s interim bail plea, the Andhra Pradesh High Court accepted Naidu’s application for regular bail on 20 November.

The next day, on 21 November, the AP CID challenged the grant of regular bail to Naidu by the High Court.

Even though the Justice Bose-led bench—then consisting of Justice Trivedi and now consisting of Justice Augustine George Masih—had extensively heard the skill-development- scam case, including Naidu’s case, APCID’s challenge has now been listed before the Justice Trivedi-led bench.

Case Following Junior Judge

Our study also revealed one politically charged case which was listed before a bench consisting of Justice Trivedi, despite similar matters either pending or already adjudicated by a different bench, and later shifted to a Justice Trivedi-led bench. 

Even though the bench headed by Justice Bopanna, the seventh senior-most judge, earlier heard the case of incarcerated DMK Minister Senthil Balaji’s money laundering case, a fresh medical bail plea filed by him in mid-October 2023 was listed before Justice Bose’s bench, comprising Justice Trivedi.

The office report of the Supreme Court had noted that a similar case was earlier heard and judged by Justice Bopanna’s bench. Yet, the case was listed before Justice Bose and Trivedi.

Balaji’s bail plea ultimately shifted from Justice Bose’s bench to Justice Trivedi’s on the second date of the hearing without any explanation, despite Justice Bose having directed the matter to be listed on 20 November, twenty days after he first heard the case.

On 28 November, the Justice Trivedi-led bench, comprising Justice Sharma, the newly sworn-in judge, observed that Balaji’s “sickness is not serious”, with Justice Trivedi taking support of her Google search results to conclude that Balaji’s sickness  “can be cured by medication”.

Balaji’s counsel sought to withdraw the medical bail plea and apply for regular bail at the Madras High Court, to which the bench agreed.

(Saurav Das is an independent investigative journalist)

Konni open forum lo matladalemu.. 

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RKumar

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21 minutes ago, gnk@vja said:

Inthaki bjp pothu unda ?

They needs Christian in AP for funding so not possible. Same party allows killing of Christians in NE for votes.

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