Five Supreme Court benches start proceedings late

Five Supreme Court benches, presided over by five senior-most judges including CJI Ranjan Gogoi, on Tuesday (April 23) started court proceedings an hour later at 11:30 am.

However, the other Supreme Court benches started functioning at 10:30 am, the usual time for resumption of judicial proceedings in the apex court. The Supreme Court display board notified that from court number 1, presided over by the CJI, to court number 5 would not be holding judicial proceedings till 11:30 am.

According to sources, deliberations among top judges on certain issues were on. On April 22, all the 15 Supreme Court benches had commenced judicial proceedings at 10:45am, 15 minutes after the usual time.

The delayed start of court proceedings had led to speculation among lawyers about some meetings of judges. A three-judge bench headed by CJI on Saturday (April 20) had held an unprecedented hearing in the wake of allegations made against the CJI.

Describing the allegations of sexual harassment against him as “unbelievable”, the CJI had convened an extraordinary hearing at the Supreme Court during which he said a larger conspiracy was behind it and he would not stoop too low even to deny these allegations.