Senior Advocate Prashant Bhushan Writes to SC Registry on Arbitrary Allocation of Cases to Justice Bela M. Trivedi.
(Judicial Quest News Network)
New Delhi: After former SCBA president and senior advocate Dushyant Dave wrote to CJI DY Chandrachud expressing dissatisfaction about the way cases were being listed in Apex Court, activist and senior advocate Prashant Bhushan highlighted the unprecedented irregularity by registry in listing the cases.
Bhushan’s letter to the Supreme Court registrar against the ‘arbitrary ‘listing of a batch of matters before a bench led by Justice Bela M. Trivedi. The cases challenged the invocation of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 against journalist and lawyers regarding their fact-finding report on Tripura riots.
Bhushan has expressed his concern and said that eight politically sensitive cases show they were moved to Justice Bela M Trivedi. Over the past four months, even though the rule of assignment say they should remain with the senior judge or before a judge hearing a similar case.
It is submitted that the number of cases in the Supreme Court of India has been constantly on the rise and the listing of cases is becoming acutely challenging. It was felt that the higher level of objectivity, consistency, timelessness and transparency was essential to bolster the aspirations of the stakeholders in the judicial process.
IN the recent past Bhushan while arguing a case had orally requested the matter to be heard by the appropriate bench.
He requested the registry to take orders from CJI to “rectify the error” in listing the mentioned cases before the next date of hearing on January 10. 2024.
On an earlier occasion Sr. Advocate Dushyant Dave said that “You (CJI) have the control over the court, but not on the Judicial side you are the first among the equals As Master of the Roster you alone have the prerogative to constitute bench and allocate cases to the benches so constituted.
During the hearing, Senior Advocate Arvind Datar, appearing for the Foundation of Media Professionals had also requested that the petitions challenging the UAPA provisions be referred to a three-judge bench.
In his letter Bhushan has pointed out that when the main plea (Mukesh Vs. State of Tripura WP (Crl) 470/2021 seeking to quash the FIRs under the UAPA was first listed in 2021, before a bench led by then Chief Justice NV Ramana, and consisting of Justice Chandrachud notice was issued and interim protection against coercive action was granted.
Subsequently similar matters were tagged with it, wherein the bench presided over by Justice DY Chandrachud had passed substantive orders.
Later on, October, 18th 2023, when a fresh plea the constitutional validity of Section 15(a), and Section 18 of the UAPA came before a bench of Justice Aniruddha Bose and Justice Bela M. Trivedi, the bench directed the matter to be tagged along with Mukesh V State of Tripura Despite this order, on 13.102023, the entire batch of matters came to be listed before Justice Aniruddha Bose and justice Bela M Trivedi, Bhushan States in his letter. The matter was then directed to be listed before the appropriate bench.
However, on 29.11.2023, the batch of matters were listed before a bench led by Justice Trivedi. Bhushan has said that this listing is arbitrary and against the handbook of on Practice & Procedure and Office Procedure on Judicial Side based on the Supreme Court rules 2013.
The letter states that the pending matters are to be listed before the senior presiding Judge and are listed before the puisne judge only if the senior presiding judge is unavailable.
Bhushan has requested the registry to pass appropriate orders after taking instructions from the CJI to rectify the error in listing before the next date of hearing. The matter is next listed on 10-01-2024.
