‘We Hear Voice Of The Nation’ CJI To Petitioner Demanding Prioritisation Of Ordinary Cases

Chief Justice of D Y Chandrachud expressed his strong disapproval to an advocate’s email which stated that the Supreme Court should hear ordinary cases instead of Constitutional cases on Friday.

The Chief Justice was reacting to the email sent by Advocate Mathews J.Nedumpara expressing his views regarding the prioritisation of cases in the court. He has also referred Constitutional matters as ‘useless’, reports NDTV.

“You seem to be in ignorance of what Constitution Bench matters are…You may think that Article 370 petitions are not relevant. I don’t think that is what the government or petitioners in that case feel,” the CJI told advocate Mathews Nedumpara, adding that the Supreme Court “has been hearing the voice of the nation”.

Constitutional bench matter refers to the cases that requires a provision or provision of the Constitution to be interpreted.

This exchange took place when Advocate Nedumpara appeared before a bench comprising CJI DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala, and Justice Manoj Misra in a matter.

The CJI, while emphasising on the importance of constitution bench matters, said, “I just wanted to tell you that you don”t seem to know what constitution bench matters are and you seem to be ignorant of the importance of constitution bench matters which often involve interpretation of the Constitution, which forms the foundation of the legal framework in India.”

The matter came up when the court refused to take up a petition filed by Micro Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) firm for which Nedumpara was appearing. The court refused to take up the case as the petitioner did not challenge the case in the high court and instead approached the apex court against the magistrate’s order.

The top court had reserved all the verdicts on September 5 as a batch of plea challenging the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution which bestowed special status on the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, after 16 days of marathon hearing.

Nedumpara while leaving the court gave a remark to the court saying that the court should take care of small business enterprises which prompted DY Chandrachud to comment on the email he had sent earlier to the top court. The court then referred to him the recent case where the Constitution bench asked the Union Road Transport Highway Ministry to relook into the notification provided to the the Lighter Motor Vehicle licence holder as it would affect adversely on the lives of drivers.

CJI Chandrachud asked the lawyer to “disabuse his mind” that the apex court was “only dealing with some fancy constitution bench matters which have no bearing on the lives of ordinary people”.