Supreme Court Reopens Tomorrow : Major Things To Watch Out For

Appointment of As Many As Five New Judges

With three judges retiring during the vacation, and two judges just before it, the working strength of the top court has fallen to 31 – against the sanctioned strength of 34 – despite the recent appointment of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and KV Viswanathan. Three more judges will reach superannuation this year, one of them – Justice Krishna Murari – scheduled to demit office within four days of the reopening of the apex court. Therefore, while currently we have three vacancies, over the course of the year, three more vacancies will arise – one during the winter vacation. To deal with the five vacancies before the end-of-year break, a spate of judicial appointments is expected. It is likely that as many as five new judges will be appointed to the top court to fill the current and upcoming vacancies.  

Collegium gets new members

Following the retirement of senior judges and members of the Supreme Court collegium, MR Shah, KM Joseph, and Ajay Rastogi, the body comprising the senior-most judges of the court and responsible for making judicial appointments, now has two new members. Interestingly, Justices BR Gavai and Surya Kant, together with Justice Sanjeev Khanna – Chief Justice DY Chandrachud’s successor – are all in line to become chief justices. The other two members of the collegium are Chief Justice Chandrachud and long-standing member, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul. The membership of this collegium will remain unchanged for the next six months, till the retirement of Justice Kaul in December.

Changes in Roster for Allocation of New Cases

The Supreme Court has published a fresh roster for the allocation of new cases to 15 benches from July 3, with different categories of cases to be assigned to different benches based on subject-matter expertise and other factors. Notably, while under the earlier regime, public interest litigation (PIL) petitions were heard by all benches, now, letter petitions and PIL petitions will only be heard by the first three benches headed by Chief Justice Chandrachud, and Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Sanjiv Khanna respectively. Other than these, the three benches will also exclusively hear matters relating to company law, monopolistic and restrictive trade practices, the Telecom Regulatory Authority, the Securities and Exchange Board, and the Reserve Bank, as well as cases arising out of mercantile laws, and commercial transactions including banking.

The only bench that will hear election matters in which the election of the president, or the vice-president of the country, or members of the parliament or state legislatures, has been challenged is the one headed by Chief Justice Chandrachud. The chief justice-led bench will also exclusively hear matters relating to the appointment of constitutional functionaries, commissions of enquiry, and the allocation of fifteen percent all-India quota in admission or transfer to medical colleges.

While there are specialised benches for different subjects such as arbitration, compensation, direct and indirect taxation, labour law, etc., service matters, ordinary civil matters, and criminal matters – which comprise a sizeable portion of the court’s workload – will be handled by more than ten benches at a time.

Constitution Bench Judgement in Marriage Equality Pleas

It is likely that the constitution bench of the Supreme Court hearing the batch of pleas for recognition of marriage equality will deliver its much-awaited verdict soon. The bench comprising Chief Justice of India Chandrachud, and Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, S Ravindra Bhat, Hima Kohli, and PS Narasimha began hearing the matter on April 18, and reserved it after ten days of hearing, on May 11.

There are twenty petitions before the bench, filed by various queer couples, transgender persons and LGBTQIA+ activists challenging the provisions of the Special Marriage Act 1954, Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 and the Foreign Marriage Act, 1969 to the extent these legislations did not recognise non-heterosexual marriages, although the court clarified at the outset that it would confine itself to only the issue regarding the Special Marriage Act.

The reason that this judgment can be expected soon is not only because the top court has often emphasised the need to promptly deliver verdicts, but also owing to the impending retirement of Justices Bhat and Kaul later this year.

Range of Issues to be Heard by Constitution Benches

A new constitution bench has been formed to hear four cases starting Wednesday, July 12. The bench – headed by Chief Justice Chandrachud and comprising Justices Hrishikesh Roy, PS Narasimha, Pankaj Mithal and Manoj Misra – will answer questions such as whether the ‘rules of the game’ can be changed by the instrumentalities of the State after a process of selection has begun, whether a person, who is ineligible to be appointed as an arbitrator, can appoint an arbitrator, etc.

Chief Justice Chandrachud also indicated that constituting a seven-judge bench to hear the constitutional issues regarding money bills was on his priority list. In 2019, a constitution bench headed by then-chief justice Ranjan Gogoi doubted the correctness of the interpretation of the majority judgment which held the Aadhaar Bill to be a ‘money bill’ within the meaning of Article 110(1) of the Constitution, referring the attendant issues for a comprehensive examination by a seven-judge bench.

Apart from these, there are a number of other important developments to look out for, such as the hearings in the matters related to the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution, electoral bond scheme, remission of eleven convicts in the Bilkis Bano case, prevention of hate speech and hate crime, SEBI’s probe into the Adani-Hindenburg issue, and many more. The plea against electoral bonds – which has been challenged as an ‘obscure’ funding system unchecked by any authority – assumes particular significance in light of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.