SC comes out with fresh roster on allocation of cases to benches; top 3 benches to hear PILs

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has come out with a fresh roster for allocation of new cases to 15 benches from July 3 and the first three courts presided over by Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud and the two senior-most judges respectively will hear PILs.

The roster for the assignment of fresh cases was notified by the apex court registry under the order of the CJI and will come into effect from July 3 when the top court reopens after the summer vacation.

In a significant development, now, the fresh petitions arising out of the letters written by the citizens to the apex court and the new public interest litigations (PILs) will be heard by the benches presided over by the CJI, Justice S K Kaul and Justice Sanjiv Khanna, the two senior-most judges, respectively.

Justice Chandrachud's predecessor, CJI U U Lalit, had allocated PILs to all the benches.

Subject wise, the CJI-led bench will be dealing with a maximum number of issues ranging from cases pertaining to indirect taxes, service matters, criminal appeals, election petitions, company law, habeas corpus matters and arbitration.

The matters relating to appointment of constitutional authorities and judicial officers, armed forces, admissions to educational institutions will also be dealt with by the CJI-led bench.

The subject-wise allocation of cases has been done for 15 senior judges who will be presiding benches in the apex court from July 3.

The 12 other presiding judges are B R Gavai, Surya Kant, Aniruddha Bose, A S Bopanna, Krishna Murari, S Ravindra Bhat, Hrishikesh Roy, Abhay S Oka, Vikram Nath, J K Maheshwari and Hima Kohli.

According to the new roster, arbitration matters will be heard by the benches led by the CJI, justices Kaul, Khanna, Bhat and Oka.