- The Supreme Court of India on February 1, 2018, released new ‘Roaster System’ for allocation of cases to the SC benches headed by senior judges. This new system comes into effect from February 5, 2018.
- Under new system each of the 12 benches of the Supreme Court has been allotted specific subject matters. The bench number-1, headed by the Chief Justice of India will hear fresh public interest litigation cases apart from some other subject matters.
- The new roaster system came in the backdrop of the revolt by four senior most judges of the SC. On January 12, 2018, through unprecedented press conference, four senior most judges (justices J. Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B. Lokur and Kurian Joseph) had raised the issue of case allocation by the CJI. These four judges had said that the CJI was allocating the serious and important cases to their favourite benches.
- Roaster is related to the allocation of different cases to the different benches of SC. The Chief Justice of India is the ‘Master of Roaster’ of the Supreme court and only he has power to allocate the cases to the 12 different benches. But in November 2017, a bench headed by Justice J. Chelameswar had ordered to constitute a five member constitution bench to hear a corruption case. Latter, a constitutional bench headed by the Chief Justice of India Justice Dipak Mishra, declared that as a master of roaster, it is the prerogative of the Chief Justice of India to decide what case has to be heard by which judge. The Constitution Bench also said that the CJI is indeed the first among equals on the judicial side, but as far as administrative side is concerned, he is the master of the roster.
