CJI Dipak Misra met four senior colleagues,Ice Has Begun Melting……
NEW DELHI : Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra today met the four of his seniormost colleagues for a discussion on the issues bothering the judicial administration of the Supreme Court.
CJI Misra invited Justices J.Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B. Lokur and Kurian Joseph to his official chamber in the Supreme Court for a discussion in the morning. The discussion will continue on January 17.
This is the first time in the past three days since the four judges held a press conference, the CJI has met them for a discussion on issues flagged by the foursome in an unprecedented press conference on January 13.
Judges who had criticised him publicly, and discussed “all issues”, top sources have told to a tv Channel. The judges will continue their discussions tomorrow, sources said, adding that “things are moving in the right direction”.”The ice has started melting,” said the sources.
Ddelivering another twist in the story after Attorney General KK Venugopal said that the dispute remained unresolved. One of the main triggers of the unprecedented rift, the case related to judge BH Loya’s death, was taken up today by the Supreme Court.
The four judges — who are the senior most after the Chief Justice — have been kept out of a constitution bench announced yesterday for eight important cases. It is not clear if that will change after the talks.
The judges had also chatted during an informal meeting at the Supreme Court lounge, where judges usually spend some time before going to court. Later, Mr Venugopal told reporters that everything “had been settled”.
But this morning, Mr Venugopal amended: “From what has been reported in The Hindu, I accept that the judges’ conflict is not settled.” The Hindu newspaper quoted sources close to the four judges as denying any reconciliation and saying that there had been “no attempts so far to resolve the issues raised by the judges”.
Judge Loya died of a cardiac arrest on December 1, 2014, while attending a wedding in Nagpur. At the time, he was handling the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case in which BJP president Amit Shah was an accused. Mr Shah was discharged by the judge who replaced judge Loya.
Last weekend, judge Loya’s son Anuj denied that there was anything suspicious in the death and said it was being politicised.
Justice Arun Mishra reportedly “broke down” at the informal meet at the lounge and complained that he had been unfairly targeted. Justice Chelameswar was seen with his arm around Justice Mishra as he was led by the Chief Justice to his chamber, reported news agency IANS.
