'Everything settled' as Chief Justice meets all judges in SC

All the judges of the Supreme Court met here informally on Monday, leading Attorney General K.K. Venugopal to claim that the crisis in the country's top court "has been settled".

"There was an informal meeting in the morning (before the commencement of the court). Now everything has been settled," Venugopal told the media, describing the developments in the top court since January 12 as "a storm in a tea cup".

An unprecedented crisis engulfed the Supreme Court after four senior most judges went public questioning the functioning of the top court including the allocation of cases, in a direct attack on Chief Justice Dipak Misra.

"The full court met (today morning). It seems that everything is settled. Everything is hunky dory," the Attorney General said.

Every day before the commencement of court work at 10.30 a.m., all the judges have tea together. On Monday, when the judges came for the customary tea, the top court staff attending to judges in the lounge were asked to leave.

Thereafter in an informal chat, the issues raised by the four judges in their press conference last Friday were informally talked over and "resolved".

As a consequence of this meeting, the top court began its work ten minutes later.

The benches in Court Number two, three, four and five headed by the rebel judges, Justice J. Chelameswar, Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Madan B. Lokur and Justice Kurian Joseph, respectively attended to their business as usual.

Later, a lawyer R.P. Luthra in a mentioning before Court Number One headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said that there is "a conspiracy to destroy the institution" and urged the Chief Justice to take action.

However, the Chief Justice smiled and remained silent.

--IANS

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