'Judges should respect roster, hear only Chief Justice-assigned cases'

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has said that judges should respect the roster system under which chief justices of the apex court and high courts assign the cases to judges and they should not entertain any petition not assigned to them.
A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Pankaj Mithal said that entertaining a case not assigned by the chief justice is gross impropriety and against judicial discipline.
"The judges have to follow discipline and ought not to take up any case unless it is specifically assigned by the chief justice. A judge can take up a case provided either the cases of that category have been assigned to him as per the notified roster or the particular case is specifically assigned by the chief justice. Taking up a case not specifically assigned by the chief justice is an act of gross impropriety," the bench said.
The court passed the order while quashing the order passed by a bench of Rajasthan HC in civil writ petition filed by the accused seeking clubbing of FIRs and interim protection.
The bench said that the petition filed by the accused in HC pertained to a criminal case and another bench was assigned by the chief justice to hear criminal writ petition.
The bench said that instead of passing an order and granting relief the bench should have converted that petition to criminal writ petition which could be heard by the roster judge.
"Though a civil writ petition was filed, the learned judge ought to have converted into a criminal writ petition which could have been placed only before the roster judge taking up criminal writ petitions," the bench said.
The court said it was forum hunting by the accused as they did not get relief in their petition for quashing of FIR and they resorted to file civil writ petition to get the relief indirectly by seeking interim protection under the guise of clubbing of FIRs. The top court imposed a cost of Rs 50,000 on them. "This is a case of gross abuse of the process of law. We wonder how a civil writ petition for clubbing FIR could be entertained. " the bench said.