The Dissenting Four Judges desire a “Peace Plan” From Chief Justice: Top 10 Facts

The four senior judges, who took on Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra in the public, will have a meeting tomorrow as part of the efforts at ending a rift that could impact important cases. Originally, the meeting was supposed to be held this morning but didn’t take place since Justice Jasti Chelameswar is unwell and could not attend court.

According to sources close to the rebel judges, Chief Justice Mishra is aware of the issues and he had reached out to dissenting judges yesterday. Reportedly, a 15-minute meeting was organized to discuss “all the issues” including their criticism of sensitive cases being assigned to junior judges.

Sources revealed to NDTV after the meeting that “the ice has started melting”.

Here are the top 10 things you must know:

1. As per reports, the dissenting judges, who demand a stronger institution, have said, “something is happening and they are ready for a debate”. They seemed to have claimed that Chief Justice Mishra has to come out with a plan solve this issue.
2. The country’s most senior judges after Chief Justice Misra, Justices Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan Lokur and Kurien Joseph, have been kept out of a constitution bench which was supposed to decide on eight important cases. One of the cases is the legal challenge to the Aadhaar system, will be taken up today.
3. And one the main triggers for the unprecedented crisis is said to be the case involving Judge BH Loya’s death could be reassigned. The two judges, who had a hearing of the case yesterday, had said in an order that the case to be “put up before the appropriate Bench”. Now the Chief Justice is to decide whether to assign the case to a different set of judges.
4. Last week, the four “rebel” judges took the strange step of addressing a press conference and voicing their concerns. They even warned that “without an independent judiciary, democracy will not survive”. They claimed that cases of “far-reaching consequences” were being assigned inappropriately.
5. When the Loya case was assigned to Justice Arun Mishra, who is number 10 in the apex court’s pecking order, the judges went public. The judges said that the Chief Justice was abusing his position as “master of the roster”.
6. According to reports, Justice Arun Mishra broke down at a meeting with other judges on Monday and said that he was “unfairly” targeted. Now questions were being raised about his “competence”, he said.
7. Forty-eight-year-old Judge Loya died in Nagpur in December 2014. His death came at the time when he was hearing a case in which BJP chief Amit Shah was accused. Later a new judge was appointed to hear the case and discharged Amit Shah ruling that there was no evidence to merit his trial. However, Two months earlier, Judge Loya’s relatives said his death was unnatural. His sister Anuradha Biyani claimed that he was offered a huge bribe to rule in favour of Amit Shah.
8. While the claim grew for an investigation into his alleged heart attack at a wedding, a Maharashtra journalist and activist-petitioner Tehseen Poonawalla requested the Supreme Court give an order for an independent inquiry.
9. However, Judge Loya’s son, Anuj Loya, on Sunday claimed that he did not have any suspicions regarding the death. On Tuesday, the Nagpur Police told the Supreme Court that the judge’s death was due to heart attack and “no probe was necessary”.
10. Even the Maharashtra government had submitted documents linking the death in the court in a sealed cover and did not want the papers to be seen by anyone. Justices Arun Mishra and MM Shantanagoudar, however, ruled that the petitioners should be able to see these papers.