Shanti Bhushan v. Supreme Court of India Through Its Registrar
Background
Senior advocate Shanti Bhushan filed this writ petition seeking the Supreme Court's clarification of the Chief Justice of India's authority, by convention, as the "Master of the Roster": the sole administrative power to decide which bench hears which case. He did not challenge any specific past judgment or order, but asked the Court to rule that, for allocating sensitive or important matters, the term "Chief Justice" should legally be read to mean a "Collegium" of the five senior-most judges, so that no single individual could potentially steer a case to a particular bench to secure a predetermined outcome.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court rejected the core submission that "Chief Justice" should be reinterpreted as a five-judge collegium for roster purposes, holding that the power to frame the roster and allocate cases is a long-settled constitutional and conventional prerogative of the Chief Justice alone, grounded in the Supreme Court Rules, 2013 framed under Article 145 and reinforced by precedent (including the Constitution Bench ruling in Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms v. Union of India). The Court reasoned that vesting this administrative function in multiple hands could cause friction and administrative paralysis, and that existing Rules and the Handbook on Practice and Procedure already provide sufficient guidance and checks on how cases are listed. While acknowledging that institutional practices can always be improved, the Court declined to issue any further directions and disposed of the writ petition.
Lesson Learnt
Long-standing constitutional conventions, like the Chief Justice's administrative authority to allocate cases, are not automatically displaced just because a litigant raises concerns about potential misuse; courts require a stronger constitutional or statutory basis before departing from an established institutional practice, even one touching the judiciary's own internal functioning.