Former CJI UU Lalit clears air on listing of activist Saibaba's case in SC on holiday

Former Chief Justice of India UU Lalit on Sunday responded to questions raised over a special hearing of activist G N Saibabas case on a court holiday saying the CJIs role is to set up benches when the occasion demands and he has no control over the outcome or proceedingsA special Supreme Court bench had assembled on Saturday October 15 to hear Maharashtras appeal against the acquittal of former Delhi University professor Saibaba and others in a Maoistlinks case and had suspended his releaseSome sections have questioned the alleged haste in listing the matter on a holiday and the constitution of the benchNarrating the sequence of events that led to setting up of the special bench Justice Lalit said the matter was mentioned before a bench headed by Justice DY Chandrachud who is now the Chief Justice of India CJI on October 14 for urgent listing as he was sitting on a ceremonial bench with Justice Hemant Gupta who was retiringHe said acting on the information from the registry official in this regard many judges were consulted for sitting on the special bench the next day Justice Shah and Justice Trivedi agreed to be part of it the former CJI saidMind you at no juncture had I told any of these two judges justices M R Shah and Bela M Trivedi about the nature of the matter Who are the parties involved and what kind of matter and why the matter was to be listed the next day Justice Lalit said in an interview with PTIThey simply went ahead with the idea that the chief was asking them that would they be a part of the bench they simply agreed to be a part of the special benchThere was nothing what the social media is trying to project that it was well thought out or something Justice Lalit who demitted office on November 8 as the 49th CJI saidHe said whatever happens before the bench the CJI has no control on it and he cannot be a party to it My role as the CJI was to make the bench available when the occasion demands then to see that a bench is constituted at the early stage Justice Lalit saidElaborating further on the Saibaba matter he said See this will require a good kind of explanation on that day that it was a Friday and it was the last working day of Justice Hemant Gupta so the CJIs court rose early because the retiring judge normally sits with the CJIThe mentioning happened in court number two which was headed by Justice Chandrachud the present CJI and around 345 pm or so the matter was mentioned because there was urgency Justice Lalit saidAlso Read 6 killed 53 wounded in bomb attack in Istanbul President ErdoganThe former CJI also spoke on a range of issues including functioning of the Collegium system women in judiciary pendency of cases and listing of matters especially before the Constitution benchesOn the criticism surrounding the Collegium system of judges appointing judges in the higher judiciary he said there is nothing wrong in itThe Collegium system is here to stay and it is an established norm where judges choose judges he said adding that the fundamentals of the system can be fine tunedJustice Lalit to a question on short tenure of judges in the apex court said in a country with enormous talent it is better that judges retire and new judges come in regularlyAsked about the US Supreme Courts system in which a judge is appointed for his or her lifetime Justice Lalit pointed out that in the US and Canada a very limited number of matters reach the Supreme CourtFor instance in Canada they admit only 120 matters in a year So therefore their calendar is 10 matters a month If you go by that we have in our court on a Monday we list about 600 or 900 matters he saidTherefore if you compare the sheer number of matters with which we grapple with the number is enormous Justice Lalit saidOn being asked about the steps taken by him for streamlining listing of cases in the Supreme Court Justice Lalit said his experience of 37 years in the Supreme Court 29 years as a lawyer and eight years as a judge helped him in devising measuresJustice Lalit said soon after he took over as the CJI the first thing he did was to call a full court meeting of all judges of the Supreme Court In this meeting these issues were discussed threadbare for almost three hours he saidIt was after that a solution all of us thought would be the ideal solution which will take care of the Constitution bench matters the threejudge combination matters the afternotice matters which are almost 38000 cases pending on the file of the court and the fresh filing and everything It was after that we devised this particular system he saidOn the issue of tenure of judges in the apex court Justice Lalit said In a country where talent is enormous so therefore it is better that judges retire and new judges new talent comes in regularly rather than having the same person occupying the post for 30 yearsAsked what he would like to do postretirement Justice Lalit said he is very fond of the languages spoken in India and would like to learn Bengali which is very sweet and lovely like RoshogullaI have also started taking online classes for Sanskrit and would try to go through Sanskrit literature he said adding that as of now he knows and speaks Marathi Hindi English and Gujarati and can understand the Punjabi language but cannot read its scriptJustice Lalit said he has an interest in literature and would like to go through the Vedas and the Puranas Till now I have not decided or thought of authoring a book or biography he saidBorn on November 9 1957 Justice Lalit was appointed judge of the Supreme Court on August 13 2014 and was sworn in as the 49th CJI on August 27 November 8 was his last day in officeThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason 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