Does it really matter?

"Four top judges revolt against CJI; SC on trial," was the headline in one newspaper yesterday, referring to a press conference called by the 4 senior most judges of the Supreme Court, Justices J Chelameswar, R Gogoi, MB Lokur and K Joseph, to highlight their unhappiness at the way the Chief Justice of India was allocating the most important cases only to certain judges. The dispute started with the MCI case which was a Public Interest Litigation, or PIL, by the Judicial Accountability and Reforms, when the CJI overruled Justice Chelameswar's  order of constituting a constitution bench by selecting his own bench without consulting the judge. In that case there were allegations of bribery of a judge at Orissa High Court. That is surely insulting. In a letter signed by all the 4 judges they wrote, "There have been instances where cases having far-reaching consequences for the nation and the institution had been assigned by the Chief Justices of this court selectively to the benches of their preferences without any rational basis for such assignment." "Certain judicial orders passed by this court has adversely affected the overall functioning of the justice delivery system and the independence of the high courts besides impacting the administrative functioning of the office of the Hon'ble Chief Justice of India." Are the judges accusing the CJI of bias due to outside pressure? The final affront to the 4 judges came when a PIL regarding the sudden death of Judge BH Loya, who was hearing a case on the fake encounter which killed a known gangster Sohrabuddin Sheikh in 2005 in Gujarat, under suspicious circumstances, was assigned to a judge junior in rank to the four. This government tried to take control of appointing judges to high courts and the Supreme Court by setting up a National Judicial Appointments Commission which would include politicians. The amendment was struck down by a majority of 3 judges to one, Justice Chelameswar upheld it. At present judges to higher courts are selected by a secret collegium consisting of the Chief Justice and other senior judges. The present controversy will allow politicians to say "we told you so". The Supreme Court is acutely conscious of the abject surrender of its dignity to Mrs Indira Gandhi during the Emergency (1975-77) when she appointed AN Ray as Chief Justice, superseding more senior judges. The bar council, a collection of top lawyers, is to meet judges today to try to resolve the rift. Lawyers earn phenomenal amounts of money just for appearing before the court for a few minutes to request postponement of cases. The longer a case continues the more they earn. Recently the Supreme Court had to apologize for delaying resolution of a case for 13 years during which the petitioner died. What use is the court?