The crisis in the Supreme Court seems to be far from over with Attorney General K K Venugopal today saying the matter seems to be unresolved and the Supreme Court Bar Association President, Vikas Singh, hoping it would be settled by this weekend.
Venugopal, who had yesterday asserted that everything was settled in the judiciary, today said, “I think it (crisis) has not been settled. Let's hope things will be fully settled within 2-3 days.''
A crisis erupted on January 12 after four senior judges -- Justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph -- openly castigated the functioning of the top court headed by the Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra.
Asked about the crisis, senior advocate and SCBA President, Vikas Singh, today said there was a likelihood of the crisis being resolved by the end of this week. “By the end of this week, the crisis is likely to be resolved,” he told PTI, when asked about the present situation.
Singh said when he had handed over the resolution of SCBA to the CJI on Sunday, he had got the impression that the crisis would be resolved. He said that the CJI was hopeful that within a week things will return to normalcy. He also said as of now it appeared that everything is returning to normal.
SCBA in its emergency meeting on Saturday had passed a resolution asking the Chief Justice to convene a full court meeting of the apex court judges and transfer all pending PILs for hearing before the five senior-most judges who are members of the collegium.
Asked whether he had a meeting or spoke with any of the four judges or the CJI, Venugopal said, “Nothing of that sort has happened.'' However, he hoped things will be sorted out in the next couple of days.
The four top Supreme Court judges had yesterday resumed work, belying the simmering tensions sparked by their accusations against the Chief Justice, while the Attorney General had described the unprecedented crisis as “a storm in a tea cup“.
In the presser, the four judges had flagged certain problems, including the assigning of cases in the apex court, and said there were certain issues afflicting the country’s highest court.
The Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra, had on Sunday met a seven-member delegation of the Bar Council of India and SCBA President, Vikas Singh, and had assured them that the crisis would be sorted out soon and congeniality would prevail.