Full disclosure: The author is a Supreme Court lawyer and part of the team working on the Campaign for Judicial Accountability & Judicial Reforms petition.

There is never a dull day in the Supreme Court, but the extraordinary events of the past three days in a matter concerning alleged bribes paid to judges have been unprecedented in the history of the apex court of India. The petition in question sought an independent investigation in a medical institute matter that could allegedly involve corruption at high levels of the judiciary including the SC judges who were hearing a particular matter of a medical institute. In this case, the said bench was headed by the Chief Justice Dipak Misra himself.

It is pertinent to note that the CBI had already registered an FIR in the matter in September, naming a retired judge of the Orissa High Court and officers of a certain medical institute for trying to “settle the matter” through the judiciary and get certain illegal gratification delivered. Since the matter in which alleged bribes were paid was being heard at the apex court by a bench headed by the Chief Justice, it brings him in the scope of investigation as well. The recent petitions sought investigation by an independent body in the said corruption case, in which the CBI had already registered FIR.

In this regard, the matter was mentioned for urgent listing before Justice Chelameswar’s (the second seniormost judge of the Supreme Court) bench on November 8 and later a similar petition was filed by senior lawyer Kamini Jaiswal on November 9. On November 9, Justice Chelameswar had referred Jaiswal’s petition to a constitution bench comprising five senior-most judges of the Supreme Court to be heard on Monday.

However, the CJI, in an unprecedented move, called an urgent hearing of seven judges of the Supreme Court to hear the petition filed on behalf of Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reform at 3 pm. Prashant Bhushan was informed of the said hearing at 2:45 pm. While seven seats had earlier been arranged for the hearing in CJI court, later two seats were removed and the matter was finally heard by a five-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Mishra himself, Justice Arun Mishra, Justice R  K Agarwal, Justice Amitava Roy and Justice Khanwilkar. Purportedly, the reason of the said listing was to undo the order of Justice Chelameswar’s two-judge bench in a manner of an “intra-court” appeal, which is not permissible in the Supreme Court since no appeal lies against an order of any bench of the Supreme Court.

As the proceedings commenced, Bhushan enquired from the Bench as to which matter was listed and what was the purpose of the hearing today. The Chief Justice asked some lawyers to read the orders he had passed in the Medical Institute matter. This was done perhaps to suggest that in the Medical Institute case, he had passed orders contrary to the supposed allegation. At this point, Bhushan repeatedly submitted that the Chief Justice ought not to hear the matter since his name was there in the FIR. The Chief Justice shouted, “What nonsense, my name is nowhere in the FIR. This is contempt of the court.” To which Bhushan said, “Alright please issue contempt notice against me”.

Thus began an hour-long unprecedented hearing where a certain section of lawyers claiming to be ‘majority of the members of the Bar’ targeted Bhushan for daring to ask the Chief Justice to recuse. The Bench gave a hearing to everyone who wanted to speak in favour of the court’s decision, but lawyer Ramesh Mishra who wished to speak against the court’s approach was shouted down both by the Bench and other advocates. Bhushan was also not allowed to speak by both the Bench and other lawyers. Many of the lawyers present passed unsolicited comments, engaged in sloganeering.

Everything about the day’s proceedings in the Supreme Court – from the sudden listing, the lack of procedure and no opportunity being accorded the petitioner to address the court (who is generally heard first) – was most shocking. Eventually, having realised he would not be heard even for a minute, Bhushan stormed out of the court in protest and thereafter, an order was passed that the Chief Justice will decide which bench will hear this matter, and thus effectively overruling Justice Chelameswar’s order passed yesterday.

The entire hearing raises certain important questions: Why did the Chief Justice Misra insist on hearing the matter? What was wrong with Justice Chelameswar’s order referring the matter to the five senior-most judges of the Supreme Court? What is the fear and why the panicky haste? And why violate the basic principle of law: Nemo judex in causa sua, that no one should be a judge in his own case?

Certainly, today was a black day in the history of the Supreme Court as its institutional credibility took a hit.

Update: A full disclosure of the author’s association with the Campaign for Judicial Accountability & Judicial Reforms has been added to this piece, which was earlier missing. We regret the oversight.