CJI Sanjiv Khanna Orders New Roster for Supreme Court: Important Bench for PIL Matters and Transparency in Case Allotment
Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna has issued a new roster for the Supreme Court of India that may be interpreted as an effort to further smoothen case allotments. This roster will come into effect from 11 November. Changes in the roster are intended to improve judicial efficiency as much as to have a greater degree of transparency about case distribution. Under the new system, the PILs and letters petitioning the court would be heard by a bench led by CJI Khanna followed by that of senior judges, Justice Bhushan R. Gavai, and Justice Surya Kant.
The new roster also lists specific case responsibilities for each bench. For PILs, matters related to social justice; cases relating to the election of the President and Vice-President, Members of Parliament and the Legislative Assemblies will be dealt with in the CJI and his senior colleagues' bench. Also, habeas corpus and matters concerning mediation will come under it.
This move follows a stream of changes made by the previous CJI U.U. Lalit, who had been at the helm of a process where all the PILs were allocated to separate benches. His successor, however, opted for a more dynamic and diversified approach to distributing the cases. The new roster, therefore, seems to be a step toward making the judicial system more efficient while being transparent in case distribution.
More importantly, senior judges like Justice J. B. Pardiwala will come to deal with civil as well as tax matters. The new system's idea is that the focus of every bench should correspond to the collective expertise and experience of its leadership judges, which should thus raise the quality of their decisions and results in cases.
The case allocation system reflects a significant reform within the working of India's apex court, shifting more cases toward more specialized and streamlined hearings. With specific areas of law being assigned to senior-most judges within the court, this would pave the way for the Supreme Court to handle the rising volumes in an effective and efficient manner.
