As the Supreme Court of India reopens on July 3 after its ongoing summer vacations, it is set to have a new scientifically-driven roster.
As per media sources, the new roster system will be based on the inflow and pendency of cases, after considering the domain expertise of judges of the top court.
As per the information, more judges have been assigned for the ordinary civil, criminal and service cases as India has the highest inflow and pendency on the same.
It was also brought to notice that the public interest litigation (PILs) will be heard by benches led by the Chief Justice of India and the two senior-most puisne judges in most cases, for the disposal of old cases.
As per the sources, the system needed re-jigging, pointing to the recent spate of retirements and impending ones, which necessitated redistribution of case categories.
Very soon, there will be specialised benches for direct and indirect taxation, land acquisition, compensation (including motor vehicles cases involving death or injury), arbitration, insolvency and corporate law.
Also, the Criminal cases will be handled by multiple judges on the bench due to the pendency.
The aim cited for the new scientific shift in roster allocation is to bring transparency and certainty in the system.
Not only the roster, but also a process for the listing and mentioning of fresh cases before the Chief Justice of India (CJI) will be operational after the vacations.
All fresh miscellaneous matters that are verified by Tuesday will now automatically be listed on the coming Monday, while those verfied post Tuesday will be listed on the Friday of the next week.
From now on, the Counsel seeking listing of verfied fresh matters prior to such allotted dates will have to submit their mentioning proformas by 3 pm, to get their cases heard the next day.
Also, people who seek listing on the same day, will have to submit the proformas by 10:30 am to the mentioning officer along with a letter of urgency.
The CJI will then take a call on the same during lunch hours or ‘as the exigency may warrant’.
Regarding the after-notice and regular hearing matters which need urgent listing, the counsel will have to first go before the mentioning officer with the proforma and urgency letter.
After seeking instructions from the CJI, the Registrar of the court will notify the lists so generated for mentioning before the appropriate bench.
No mentionings other than those in the mentioning lists uploaded a day prior will be permitted for such matters.