SC: Puisne Judges Have No Authority To Re-Assign Cases, Only CJI Can Do So

The Supreme Court reaffirmed on Monday that only the Chief Justice of India (CJI) has the authority to list cases before different Supreme Court benches or reassign them.

The remark was made by a bench of Justices BR Gavai and Vikram Nath after it was irritated by a case listed before it by another bench of Justices MR Shah and CT Ravikumar.

Justice Gavai stated, “Puisne judges have no authority to re-assign cases. Only the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India can do so.”

On February 27, a bench of Justices Shah and Ravikumar ordered that the matter be heard by a Justice Gavai-led bench, possibly because a bench of Justices Gavai and Ravikumar had previously heard the matter, even though no effective order was passed on that date.

“It is a normal practise of this Court that the matter follows a judge who is part of the Bench which has passed an effective order,” the current bench stated at the outset in its order.

It was noted that the only effective order in the case, that of issuing notice, was issued by a bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar and Ravikumar in September 2021.

Following Justice Khanwilkar’s retirement, the case was heard by a bench that included Justice Ravikumar, as is the norm. It was heard before Justices Gavai and CT Ravikumar in September of last year, but no order was passed.

Later, when the case was heard by a bench of Justices Shah and Ravikumar, it ordered, “Let the present application be heard by a Bench presided over by Justice BR Gavai as soon as possible.”

However, the Gavai-led bench disagreed.

“Ordinarily, the matter(s) pertaining to the placement of the matter(s) before the Benches must be passed by the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India. If a particular Bench determines that the matter should be referred to another Bench, the Bench must direct that the matter be referred to the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India for appropriate orders,” the bench stated this in its order.

Furthermore, because an effective order was passed by a bench of which Justice Ravikumar was a member, the case should have been heard by the bench on which he is a member.

Therefore, the bench directed that the case be placed before the CJI.

“We believe it is appropriate to direct the Registry to refer the matter to the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India for obtaining appropriate orders,” the Court stated.