The last 48 hours in the Supreme Court of India have witnessed exceptional events. Both the cases pertained to issues of considerable significance. The first one related to the protracted stand-off between the central government and judiciary over finalising the new norms for appointment of judges in the Supreme Court and high courts. The second one was a matter related to exploring the possibility of an alternate forum to decide criminal appeals without delays. While the other bench comprising Justices Adarsh K Goel and Uday U Lalit sought assistance of the Attorney General, the CJI-led bench wrapped up the cases without requiring to hear the AG on the first day, in a hearing spanning less than 30 minutes. Questions arose what exigency required the bench headed by the CJI, who is also the master of the roster and is in-charge of allocating cases to different courts, to transfer these two cases to itself and then close the proceedings? Did it not undermine the wisdom of the other bench, which wanted to go into the cases in details and had even requested the AG to assist? Was it not an instance of an "intra-court" appeal in the Supreme Court, which neither the Constitution nor does the Court rules acknowledge? Senior advocate Dushyant Dave approached Court number 2, headed by Justice J Chelameswar, for an urgent listing of a PIL. He claimed that the top court must step in because the credibility of judiciary and the judges were at stake in view of certain bribery allegations and hence, the truth has to be unravelled. But this request was not much different from the one on Wednesday, when he had shown up before Justice Chelameswar. A day ago, Dave along with advocate Prashant Bhushan, had mentioned a similar PIL, arising out of the same criminal case and with identical prayers. Justice Chelameswar, who had to hear cases meant for urgent listing because the CJI was heading a Constitution Bench matter, posted the other case on Friday. However, on Thursday, Justice Chelameswar agreed to take up the second similar matter on an urgent basis at 12.45 pm. The direction was to place the case before a bench headed by him.This was apparently a departure from the usual practice in the Supreme Court, where even the urgent matters are directed to be placed before an "appropriate" bench, which is decided by the CJI. But Justice Chelameswar manifestly decided not to wait for the CJI to take a call on the administrative side as to which bench should hear the case. Meanwhile, 45 minutes before the scheduled hearing of this case in Court number 2, the Constitution Bench led by the CJI got up abruptly in Court number 1 and said it will resume proceedings at 2 pm. At 12.45 pm, Dave stood before the bench of Justices Chelameswar and SA Nazeer. He demanded an independent probe by a special investigation team under the supervision of a former CJI in the wake of the allegations that the rot of corruption behind granting approvals to medical colleges could run to the top judiciary. Dave pointed out that a former Odisha High Court judge was arrested in this case and the FIR indicated others could also be involved.