NEW DELHI, Jan 16 - There was an uneasy truce in the country�s top court today as Chief Justice Dipak Misra reached out to four dissenting judges to resolve a rift with them over the allocation of cases in the Supreme Court.
Justice Misra met the four judges � Justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph � separately in the course of the customary tea gathering at the judges lounge this morning, sources privy to the development said.
The nearly 15-minute conversation between the Chief Justice and his four seniormost colleagues would be followed by a similar meeting tomorrow morning as the talks remained inconclusive, the sources said.
During the meeting, the sources said, Justice Misra and the rebel judges discussed all the outstanding issues, point of contentions and differences. The Chief Justice took the initiative of meeting the four judges as they were not satisfied with the outcome of a meeting of all judges on Monday morning, the sources said.
An impression was generated on Monday that issues were resolved after Attorney General KK Venugopal said the events since January 12 were a �storm in a tea cup� and that �everything is settled�.
The apex court was hit by unprecedented crisis, after the four seniormost judges at a press conference expressed their unhappiness about the functioning of the court and how cases were being allocated arbitrarily.
They complained that �administration of Supreme Court is not in order and there have been things less than desirable that have happened in the court�.
The judges also released a letter they had written to the Chief Justice questioning how he was arbitrarily deciding which bench should decide which case even as he is the �master of the roster� but that did not make him a �superior authority�. �The Chief Justice is only the first amongst equals � nothing more or nothing less,� the letter said. � IANS
