The Chief Justice is the master of the roster. But when control of the roster determines which judge hears which sensitive case, the question is no longer merely administrative.

It is about who decides which cases are heard and by whom - and whether the established norms of roster allocation are being followed.

The controversy begins with a case that should have been routine: a challenge by Gautam Buddha Nagar District Magistrate Medha Roopam to the Allahabad High Court judgment quashing the National Security Act detention of Delhi University student Akriti Chaudhary. The Supreme Court matter was heard on September 23 by Justices Satish Chandra Sharma and N Kotiswar Singh.

The difficulty is that the published roster did not ordinarily assign habeas corpus and preventive detention matters to Justice Sharma’s Bench. That category was assigned to a Bench headed by Justice BV Nagarathna.

A special assignment is not, by itself, unlawful. But that is precisely why the question cannot be brushed aside: who authorised the departure from the ordinary roster and where is that departure recorded? If the roster is published as the Court’s mechanism for transparent allocation, an exception to the roster cannot be allowed to become an administrative secret.

The matter became more sensitive because Roopam is the daughter of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. The Allahabad High Court had not merely quashed the detention; it had imposed strictures and directed recovery of ₹5 lakh from the salaries of officials. On September 23, the Supreme Court’s initial order stated that the “operation of the impugned judgment” would remain stayed, “particularly” paragraphs 27 to 33. The wording created an immediate ambiguity over whether the student’s detention had also been revived.

When an order affecting personal liberty requires correction within 24 hours, the question is not merely what the Court ultimately meant, but why the first order was framed with such ambiguity in the first place.

There was another unusual feature. During the hearing, after briefly hearing the Solicitor General and senior counsel for the State, the Bench muted the audio of the virtual proceedings and closed media access to the video feed for the remainder of the hearing. No reason for restricting access was publicly stated.

In a case already raising questions about listing and roster allocation, the sudden loss of public access to the hearing adds another layer to the transparency question. The issue is not whether the Court has circumstances in which it may restrict access; it is whether such a restriction, particularly in a matter involving personal liberty, should itself be explained.

There is one more fact that cannot be brushed aside. Justice Satish Chandra Sharma’s son is the standing counsel for the Election Commission of India before the Madhya Pradesh High Court. The Madhya Pradesh High Court’s own records identify him in that capacity. Justice Sharma was, on the same day, hearing the challenge to the law governing the appointment of Election Commissioners and the petition filed by the daughter of the Chief Election Commissioner.

That does not establish actual bias, but it plainly raises a question of judicial propriety. When a judge’s immediate family member has a professional relationship with an institution that is directly involved in one case and closely connected with another, the least that can be expected is disclosure and a careful consideration of recusal.

The issue is not whether influence can be proved after the event. It is whether the circumstances were sufficiently close to require the judge to step aside to protect the appearance of impartiality.

A roster that applies strictly to other litigants but mysteriously changes when a politically sensitive case arrives is not a transparent roster. It is a roster with an undisclosed second layer. That second layer is where accountability begins to disappear.

On the same day, Justice Sharma was also hearing the challenge to the 2023 law governing the appointment of the Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioners. Justice Sharma held that the case raised substantial questions warranting consideration by a five-judge Constitution Bench, while Justice Dipankar Datta took a different view. The matter was, therefore, sent to the CJI for constitution of the appropriate larger bench.

The case assumes greater significance because Justice Sharma’s son is an Election Commission standing counsel before the Madhya Pradesh High Court. When a judge is hearing a judicial challenge concerning an institution for which his son professionally appears, the question of judicial propriety cannot simply be ignored.

Justice Sharma did not decide the merits of the ECI law. The question is whether the circumstances warranted disclosure and consideration of recusal before the matter was heard.

The question is recusal. When a judge is hearing a case involving an institution for which his son is professionally appearing, judicial propriety cannot be treated as an afterthought. Recusal is not an admission of bias; it is a safeguard against a conflict - or the appearance of one - undermining confidence in the Court. The real question is simple: when the connection is this close, why should the judge hear the case at all?

The Lawyers Association for Constitution has now asked for the relevant orders to be recalled and has sought greater clarity about the listing of the Medha Roopam case and the disclosure and recusal protocol where close relatives of judges represent parties or interested institutions. Its stated concern is not proof of actual influence, but the appearance created by the circumstances.

The issue is not new. Earlier this year, Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal sought the recusal of Delhi High Court Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma from the excise policy litigation and raised concerns concerning the professional association of her children with government legal work, including work assigned by the Solicitor General of India. Kejriwal expressly said that he was not alleging improper motive or actual bias, but argued that there was an appearance of conflict.

Justice Sharma eventually recused from the case. But that only highlights the larger problem: there is no clear and consistent standard for when a judge should step aside because of a relative’s professional connection with a party or institution before the court. If appearance matters, the Court must say clearly when that appearance becomes unacceptable. Recusal cannot be left to the personal discretion of individual judges, with one standard applied in one case and another elsewhere.

The roster problem begins even before the roster. A citizen may file a PIL, but filing is not the same as being heard. Between the two lie scrutiny, listing, urgency and allocation to the bench before which the matter appears.

The roster is the Supreme Court’s system for distributing cases among its benches. It identifies which benches ordinarily hear particular categories of cases. But it is far more than an administrative timetable: it determines which judges hear which disputes and, in doing so, influences when and how important constitutional questions receive judicial attention.

The published roster is the rule; special assignments are the exception. The problem begins when the exception is not visible. If a case is taken outside the ordinary roster, there should be a clear record of who made that decision and why. Otherwise, the public sees the roster but not the mechanism by which a case reaches a different bench.

CJI Surya Kant has said that the “master of the roster” is often misunderstood and that case allocation follows transparent and pre-determined systems. If that is the standard, then departures from the published roster must be equally transparent.

The law is settled: the Chief Justice of India is the master of the roster. The Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed the CJI’s authority to constitute benches and allocate cases. In Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms v. Union of India (2017), the Court made clear that an individual bench cannot direct the CJI on which judges should constitute another bench. In Shanti Bhushan v. Supreme Court of India (2018), the Court again upheld the CJI’s authority over the roster.

But that power is administrative, not personal. The CJI is first among equals and the roster exists to organise the Court’s work, not to place the Court’s judicial power in one individual’s hands. The Supreme Court has itself stressed that the roster must be exercised fairly, justly and transparently.

That is the real issue.

The CJI has the power to control the roster; the question is how that power is exercised. The stronger the Court’s insistence that roster power belongs exclusively to the CJI, the stronger the case for transparency when cases depart from the published roster.

The CJI needs roster power to organise the Court, but that power becomes dangerous when exercised opaquely. By controlling which cases reach which benches, the CJI can influence not only the distribution of work but also the distribution of judicial attention.

The Medha Roopam listing brings that concern into sharp relief. The question is not whether the order staying the High Court’s strictures was legally permissible. The larger question is why a preventive detention matter appearing outside the ordinary roster reached that particular bench and whether the Court can provide a clear answer.

This is not an entirely new concern. In January 2018, four senior Supreme Court judges publicly alleged that cases of far-reaching consequence had been assigned selectively to benches “of their preference” without a rational basis. The controversy brought the allocation of cases and the CJI’s roster power into the centre of a crisis within the Court and was followed by the Court’s examination of the issue in Shanti Bhushan v. Supreme Court of India (2018).

The distinction is simple, being master of the roster means exercising an institutional power. Mastering the roster means using that power to shape which cases go where in a manner that reflects a predetermined or prejudicial approach. The difference lies in how the power is exercised.

Jitendra Mohananey is a practising advocate.