The Supreme Court has notified a fresh roster with effect from July 13, implementing Chief Justice of India Surya Kant’s decision to constitute four dedicated Division Benches for the exclusive hearing of the oldest pending civil and criminal matters. The move forms part of the Court’s case management strategy aimed at reducing long-pending litigation and ensuring the expeditious disposal of old cases.
Under the revised roster, Division Benches headed by Justice PK Mishra and Justice SVN Bhatti will exclusively hear the oldest pending civil matters on non-miscellaneous days, namely Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Similarly, Division Benches led by Justice Manoj Misra and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan will exclusively take up the oldest pending criminal cases on the same working days. The allocation is intended to accelerate the disposal of long-standing matters that have remained pending before the apex court.
The revised roster also distributes fresh matters across eighteen subject-wise rosters to different Benches of the Supreme Court, ranging from the Bench of the Chief Justice to that of Justice Augustine George Masih, in accordance with the Court’s subject allocation system.
The Chief Justice has retained exclusive jurisdiction over matters concerning the appointment of constitutional functionaries, Presidential References under Article 143 of the Constitution, and references under Article 317(1) relating to the removal of Chairpersons or Members of tribunals, commissions and statutory authorities where the Supreme Court is required to conduct an inquiry.
The roster further assigns the complete arbitration category, comprising subject codes 301 to 306, to the Bench of the Chief Justice. Other arbitration matters have also been allocated to Benches headed by Justices BV Nagarathna, PS Narasimha, JB Pardiwala, Sanjay Kumar, Aravind Kumar and KV Viswanathan under the respective subject codes.
Cases involving confirmation of capital punishment, where a sentence of death has been awarded, will be listed only before the Benches headed by the Chief Justice, Justice Vikram Nath, Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice MM Sundresh. The subject allocation of the remaining judges specifically excludes death sentence matters.
The revised roster also provides that Public Interest Litigations across all subject categories will be assigned exclusively to the Chief Justice and the four senior-most puisne judges, namely Justices Vikram Nath, BV Nagarathna, MM Sundresh and PS Narasimha. Matters concerning writs of habeas corpus and preventive detention have likewise been reserved for these five Benches, reflecting the constitutional importance and urgency attached to issues involving personal liberty and fundamental rights.
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