Supreme Court Bench Unhappy With Another Bench Assigning A Case To It: ‘Only CJI Can Assign Cases

The Supreme Court in the case Orris Infrastructure Private Limited vs Manoj Aggarwal & Ors observed and has witnessed a rare sight of one bench openly expressing its disapproval of another bench assigning a case to it. The same being a well-established practice of the Court is that the Chief Justice of India assigning cases to benches wherein exercising the powers of “master of roster”. It has not been directed by the bench led by a puisne judge that a case should be listed before another bench.
The bench comprising of Justice BR Gavai and Justice Vikram Nath was miffed by the departure from this practice. Thus, the genesis of the issue being in an order passed by the bench comprising of Justice MR Shah and Justice CT Ravikumar on February 27, wherein it has been directed by the court that a case is to be listed before a bench led by Justice BR Gavai.
The bench stated let the present application be placed before the bench being presided over by Justice BR Gavai at the earliest. In February, Justice Shah’s bench had ordered purportedly due to the reason that the case was listed once before Justice Gavai’s bench on an earlier occasion.
The bench took an exception to a coordinate bench assigning a case to it, when the matter came before Justice Gavai’s bench.
Therefore, if it is being find by the particular bench in a particular situation that the said matter needs to be placed before another bench, wherein it is required to direct the matter which is to be placed before the Chief Justice for obtaining the appropriate orders”, it has also been recorded by Justice Gavai’s bench that the disapproval of the listing which is being ordered by the other bench. It has also been noted by the bench of Justice Gavai that there being no effective order which was passed when the case was listed before his bench in September 2022.
It has also been explained by the bench of Justice Gavai, it being a normal practice of this Court that the matter follows a judge who is part of the Bench which has passed an effective order.
The bench comprising of Justice AM Khanwilkar(since retired) and Justice CT Ravikumar, Justice Gavai’s bench in the case observed and has ordered that since an effective order has been passed by the bench of which Justice CT Ravikumar was a member, thus, the matter is said to be followed by the bench of which he is a part.
Accordingly, the court directed the registry to place the matter before the Chief Justice for obtaining the appropriate orders of the court.