There seems to be no resolution in sight for the crisis in the Supreme Court following the open questioning of the functioning of Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra as administrator of the court by his four colleagues in the collegium. The proposed peace talks over lunch on Wednesday between Misra and Justices J. Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B. Lokur and Kurian Joseph did not take place as Chelameswar did not attend court.
Chelameswar was on leave today as he was unwell. A notice was issued regarding the non-sitting of court number two, which is presided over by Chelameswar, stating that all matters listed before it will not be taken up today. It is not clear if he will be able to attend the court tomorrow. However, as per the cause list of the Supreme Court for tomorrow, cases are listed before the chambers of the second senior-most judge of the court.
Misra had met the four 'rebel' judges on Tuesday, but little headway was made in that initial round of peace negotiations. The four judges felt that Misra has so far been unable to offer any concrete proposal for resolution of the structural issues that they have raised. As the judges ended their brief meeting on Tuesday, they decided that they would meet again today (Wednesday), possibly over lunch. The four judges are learnt to have had a meeting last evening at Chelameswar's residence.
The four judges had, in a stunning press conference on January 12, spoken out against the manner in which CJI Misra was administrating the court. Their main grouse was that politically sensitive cases were being assigned to selected benches. The immediate trigger for their decision to go to the media with their issues is learnt to be the assigning of the case of death of Justice B.H. Loya to the court of Justice Arun Mishra. The four judges felt that since the case was highly sensitive, it ought to have been assigned to a senior judge.
