Luthra case: Bone of contention in controversy

New Delhi: The four Supreme Court judges, in their letter written to the CJI, referred the case of R.P. Luthra vs Union of India, which dealt with the ‘Memorandum of Procedure’, to raise questions about the assignment of cases “selectively” to preferred benches without any rationale.

The letter written by four senior-most judges of apex court —  Justices J. Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, M.B. Lokur and Kurian Joseph — said “when the MoP was the subject matter of a decision of a Constitution Bench of this court, in Supreme Court Advocates-on-record Association and Anr Vs Union of India, it is difficult to understand as to how any other bench could deal with the matter”.

On October 27 last year, a two-judge bench of apex court had agreed to examine the issue of delay in finalisation of Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) for appointments of judges in higher judiciary on judicial side and had sought the response from the Attorney General.

It had said, “We need to consider the prayer that there should be no further delay in finalisation of MoP in larger public interest. Even though no time-limit was fixed by this Court for finalisation of the MOP, the issue cannot linger on for indefinite period.”