SC judges' rebellion: Supreme Court Bar Association expresses grave concern, seeks full court hearing

New Delhi: The Supreme Court Bar Association on Saturday expressed “grave concern” over the sharp division among the top Supreme Court judges and urged for a Full Court hearing on the crisis while demanding that all PILs, including the one on the mysterious death of judge BH Loya, be referred to either the CJI or the judges in the collegium. [caption id=“attachment_4301523” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Supreme Court. AP[/caption] The SCBA executive committee held an emergent meeting and unanimously adopted two resolutions on the crisis facing the top judiciary. In the first resolution, the SCBA said the differences that have been reported in the press conference by four senior judges of the Supreme Court and the other differences which are reflected in newspapers are of “grave concern and should be immediately considered by the Full Court of the Supreme Court”. The other resolution urged that all PILs, including the pending ones, should be either taken up by the Chief Justice of India or be assigned by him to the judges in the collegium. “Even the matters listed on Monday, 15 January, 2018 should also be transferred as per our request,” the resolution said without referring to any particular case. On Friday, the Supreme Court posted the PIL seeking a probe into the death of special CBI judge Loya who was hearing the case relating to the alleged fake shootout of Sohrabuddin for Monday. Addressing a press conference, SCBA President Vikas Singh said a Full Court reference is a private hearing and an in-house procedure to thrash out issues. “It will be a very good step to restore the credibility of this institution,” he said. Asked to comment on the judge Loya case, a reference to which was made by the judges in the press conference, Singh said they would not comment on any specific cases. However, he added it was not as if nothing was wrong. There must have been something obviously the judges felt, he said. Singh said the SCBA would seek an appointment with the CJI and later with other judges in an attempt to resolve the issues.