The Supreme Court appeared to have tied itself in knots on Wednesday, with a three-judge bench questioning the judicial propriety and discipline of another three-judge bench, which had on February 8 overturned yet another three-judge bench’s 2014 judgment on land acquisition. The subject matter was important as it involved the acquisition of land and payment of compensation to land-owners, mainly farmers. But the two-hour-long proceedings before a bench of Justices Madan B Lokur, Kurian Joseph and Deepak Gupta brought back flashes of the smouldering discontent among the four most senior judges which had erupted in an unprecedented press conference+ on January 12. The protest presser by Justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Lokur and Joseph was triggered by CJI Dipak Misra’s decision to assign PILs seeking a probe into the alleged suspicious death of judge B H Loya to a bench headed by “junior judge” Arun Mishra. What the bench of Justices Lokur, Joseph and Gupta questioned on Wednesday was the judgment by a three-judge bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra+ terming a 2014 “Pune Municipal Corporation” judgment by a bench of identical strength as “per incurium” (decision rendered without taking care of facts and law). Interestingly, the Pune Municipal Corporation judgment was rendered on January 24, 2014 by a bench of Justices R M Lodha, Lokur and Joseph. The Justice Lokur-headed bench, in an interim order, asked high courts not to pass any order on pending land acquisition issues, thus stalling implementation of the February 8 judgment. It also requested other benches of the apex court to defer hearing on petitions on this issue.