CJI-headed Bench to hear matters pertaining to social justice, habeas corpus, contempt of court

The Supreme Court on Wednesday published a new roster for Public Interest Litigation (PILs) cases being heard by the Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi-headed Bench as also by a Bench headed by Justice Madan B Lokur, the second senior-most judge of the top court.

Besides PILs and letter petitions, the CJI-headed Bench will also hear matters pertaining to social justice, election, habeas corpus, contempt of court, the appointment of Constitutional functionaries, among others.

The Justice Lokur-headed Bench will hear PILs assigned to it by the CJI.

Personal Law matters will be heard by benches headed by five different judges - Justices Lokur, AK Sikri, Kurian Joseph, NV Ramana, and UU Lalit. Departing from practice where any matter could be allocated to any bench, former CJI Dipak Misra in February had introduced the roster system mandating that only the Bench headed by him would hear PILs.

The roster system was introduced following the unprecedented press conference in January by four rebel judges -- Justices Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Lokur and Kurian Joseph -- alleging arbitrary allocation of work by the CJI and demanding transparency.

(With inputs from agencies.)