The Supreme Court of India was in crisis after a press conference was given by Supreme Court judges

Jasti Chelameswar Jasti Chelameswar (born 23 June 1953) is the former Judge of Supreme Court of India. He retired on 22 June 2018 as the second most senior Supreme court judge. Earlier, he was the Chief Justice of Kerala High Court and Gauhati High Court. He ...

Ranjan Gogoi Ranjan is a name. 'Ran' means Battle and 'jan' means public, in olden days this name was given to generous kings who fight battles for the rights of people. Ranjan may also refer to: *Ranjan (actor) (1918–1983) (real name Ramanarayana Venkataram ...

Madan Lokur Justice Madan Bhimarao Lokur (born 31 December 1953) is an Indian jurist. He is a Judge of Supreme Court of Fiji. He is former Judge of Supreme Court of India. He is also former Chief Justice of Andhra Pradesh High Court and Gauhati High Cou ...

, and

Kurian Joseph Kurian Joseph (born 30 November 1953) is a former Judge of the Supreme Court of India. Previously, he has served as Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh High Court and Judge of Kerala High Court. Early life Kurian Joseph was born on 30 Novem ...

, in which they spoke against the Chief Justice of India

Dipak Misra Justice Dipak Misra (born 3 October 1953) is an Indian jurist who served as the 45th Chief Justice of India from 28 August 2017 till 2 October 2018. He is also former Chief Justice of the Patna High Court and Delhi High Court. He is the nephe ...

that he allocated certain politically controversial cases to such benches which gives favourable judgements towards a political party. The judges mentioned the allocation of the case of investigation of death of Special CBI Judge — BH Loya, who was presiding over Sohrabuddin encounter case, in which the

BJP The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Mo ...

President Amit Shah and Rohith Shah was the prime accused.

Background

On 12 January 2018, four Supreme Court judges

and

gave a press meeting in an unprecedented manner. Chelameswar said, “We tried to collectively persuade the chief justice that certain things are not in order and therefore you should take remedial measures....Unfortunately, our efforts failed.” He also said, “that unless this institution is preserved and it maintains its equanimity, democracy will not survive in this country.” The occurred after Misra headed the bench which dismissed the CJAR petition against him, and after the Justice Loya case had attracted scrutiny. The allegations against Misra were related to the allotment of matters to benches and constituting Constitution Benches in a way that arbitrarily ignored Senior Judges of the Court. That important cases were heard by benches headed by

. The judges claimed to have a written a letter to

for which they had not received a reply. After the press conference, Misra created a new judicial roster which excluded those who spoke against him from all constitution benches.

Proposed impeachment of the Chief Justice of India

On 20 April 2018, seven opposition parties submitted a petition seeking impeachment of

to the Vice President

Venkaiah Naidu Muppavarapu Venkaiah Naidu (born 1 July 1949) is an Indian politician who served as the 13th vice president of India from 2017 to 2022. He is the first Indian vice president born in independent India. He has also served as the minister of Hous ...

, with signatures from 71 parliamentarians. On 23 April 2018, the petition was rejected by Venkaiah Naidu.

References

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External links

Full text of letter: Four senior judges say situation in SC 'not in order'
Supreme Court of India

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...