NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday reserved its ruling on former union law minister Shanti Bhushan(92) plea the collegium fix the Benches instead of the Chief Justice of India(CJI) after Attorney General K K Venugopal opposed it saying it will only create “conflict and chaos.”
The Bench of Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan had summoned the Attorney General to assist it in deciding the petition which contended that the collective opinion of a collegium was much safer than the opinion of the Chief Justice alone in allocation of the cases.
Citing many judgments, the AG insisted that the CJI as the “Master of roster” has full power to allocate cases to different benches and maintain discipline, which will collapse if the case allocation is vested in the multi-member collegium.
He argued that if all the judges of the apex court or collegium decide the allocation, then “each judge would express preference” and the judicial system would “collapse.”
