Regulate CJI's role as master of roster: Shanti Bhushan tells SC

Senior Supreme Court lawyer Shanti Bhushan on Friday approached the Supreme Court seeking to regulate the power of Chief Justice of India (CJI).

In his petition, Shanti Bhushan is seeking a check on the powers of the CJI, who is the 'master of the roster' and allocates hearing of cases to different courts.

"The petition raises a very fundamental issue going to the root of the functioning of the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India and as such is very critical to the interpretation of the Constitution of India and the Rule of Law in India," stated Bhushan in his petition.

"The Chief Justice of India could not have heard this case himself quite apart from exercising his power as master of roster in allocating a bench to hear this case and constituting a Constitution Bench that finally pronounced the order declaring the Chief Justice of India as master of roster. The principle of master of roster cannot be applicable to a case where the Chief Justice of India is himself involved," Bhushan added.

In March 27, the opposition camp proposed a plan to draft an impeachment motion against the CJI in relation to the matters raised by four Supreme Court judges in a press conference on January 11.

Earlier in January, Justices Jasti Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, M.B. Lokur and Kurien Joseph in a press conference, claimed that CJI Misra was assigning important cases in an arbitrary manner to junior judges, ignoring them, who are the senior judges of the apex court.