Supreme Court notifies fresh roster; four dedicated benches to exclusively hear oldest cases

The Supreme Court has notified a new roster for hearing fresh cases with effect from July 13. operationalising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant's plan to constitute four dedicated Division Benches to exclusively hear the Court's oldest pending civil and criminal matters.

The new roster operationalises Chief Justice of India Surya Kant's plan to constitute four dedicated Division Benches to exclusively hear the oldest pending civil and criminal matters.

As per the note appended to the roster, two Division Benches, headed by Justice PK Mishra and Justice SVN Bhatti respectively, shall exclusively deal with the oldest civil matters on non-miscellaneous days, that is, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Two other Division Benches headed by Justice Manoj Misra and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan shall exclusively deal with the oldest criminal matters on the same days.

Fresh cases across eighteen individual subject rosters will be heard by benches from the CJI down to Justice Augustine George Masih.

The CJI has retained for himself matters relating to appointment of constitutional functionaries, references under Article 143 of the Constitution and references under Article 317(1) for removal of chairpersons or members of tribunals, commissions or authorities where the inquiry has to be conducted by the Supreme Court.

The full arbitration category (301 to 306) figures on the CJI's roster, while other judges taking arbitration matters include Justices BV Nagarathna, PS Narasimha, JB Pardiwala, Sanjay Kumar, Aravind Kumar and KV Viswanathan and they have been assigned codes 302 to 306.

Capital punishment matters, where a death sentence has been imposed, will go only before the CJI and Justices Vikram Nath, BV Nagarathna and MM Sundresh.

The rosters of the remaining judges expressly exclude these categories.

PILs relating to all subject categories have been marked to the CJI and the four senior most puisne judges - Justices Vikram Nath, Nagarathna, Sundresh and Narasimha.

Habeas corpus and preventive detention matters will also go only before these five benches.