Shanti Bhushan seeks clarification from SC on 'master of roster's' authority

Shanti Bhushan. Pic/AFP

Senior advocate and former law minister Shanti Bhushan on Friday filed a PIL in the Supreme Court for clarification on the administrative authority of the chief justice of India (CJI) as the 'master of roster' and seeking laying down of principles and procedures to be followed in preparing the roster for allocation of cases to benches.

He filed the PIL through his advocate and son Prashant Bhushan, who also wrote a letter to the apex court's secretary general stating that the matter should not be listed before a bench that includes CJI Dipak Misra.

The letter also said that it would be appropriate that the plea be listed before three senior-most judges of the top court for allocating it before an appropriate bench. In the petition, the CJI has been named as one of the respondents along with the registrar of the top court. Shanti Bhushan stated the "master of roster" cannot have unguided and unbridled discretionary powers, exercised arbitrarily by the CJI by handpicking benches of select judges.

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