CJI Khanna Comes Out With Fresh Roster on Allocation of Cases, First 3 Benches to Hear PILs

New Delhi: Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna has come out with a fresh roster for allocation of new cases to 16 benches and it has been decided that first three courts presided over by CJI and two senior-most judges respectively will hear letter petitions and PILs.

roster for assignment of fresh cases was notified by apex court registry under order of CJI and has come into effect from November 11.

fresh petitions arising out of letters written by citizens to apex court and new public interest litigations (PILs) will be heard by benches presided over by CJI, Justice B R Gavai and Justice Surya Kant, two senior-most judges, respectively.

Besides letter petitions and PILs, subject wise, CJI-led bench will be dealing with a maximum number of issues, including those related to social justice, disputes related to election of President, Vice President and or cases related to election of MPs and MLAS, habeas corpus matters and arbitration.

benches, presided over by Justice Kant, will also hear election-related pleas.

Former CJI U U Lalit was allocating PILs to all benches and this practice was discontinued by his successor Chandrachud.

subject-wise allocation of cases has been done for 16 senior judges who will be presiding benches.

Justice JB Pardiwala, who was sharing bench with former CJI Chandrachud, will now be dealing with direct and indirect tax matters besides ordinary civil cases.

Besides three senior most judges, including CJI, or 13 judges are justices Hrishikesh Roy, AS Oka, Vikram Nath, JK Maheshwari, BV Nagarathna, CT Ravikumar, MM Sundresh, Bela M Trivedi, PS Narasimham, Sudhanshu Dhulia, J B Pardiwala, Dipankar Datta and Pankaj Mithal.