Chief justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra has put in place a new system for allocation of cases, one of the issues that forced the four senior-most Supreme Court judges to publicly question his leadership. Under the new system, effective 5 February, cases will be allocated based on the subject matter they entail, according to a posting on the official website of the Supreme Court. Under the new roster system, the CJI will hear all special leave petitions (SLPs), and matters related to public interest, social justice, elections, arbitration, and criminal matters, among others. These form a big chunk of the important matters heard by the apex court. Left for the other judges to hear are matters related to labour disputes, taxation matters, compensation matters, consumer protection matters, maritime law matters, mortgage matters, personal law matters, family law matters, land acquisition matters, service matters, company matters etc. On 12 January, in an unprecedented move, justices J. Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B. Lokur and Kurian Joseph, alleged that the chief justice was not following established precedents in allocation of cases among the judges. Consequently, they argued, this was “adversely” affecting the justice delivery system. After submitting a seven-page letter of protest to the chief justice that morning, the judges went public with their grievances and held a press conference at the residence of justice Chelameswar. Explaining their unprecedented action, Chelameswar had said the judges were driven by the fear that failure to communicate their concerns could jeopardize the institution of the Supreme Court and thereby of democracy. While Gogoi is next in line to take over from Misra, Chelameswar, Joseph and Lokur will retire this year. The letter had cited the irregular manner of assigning of cases by Misra as a particular matter of concern. “There have been instances where a case having far-reaching consequences for the nation and the institution have been assigned by the chief justice selectively to the benches ‘of their preference’ without any rational basis for such assignment. This must be guarded against at all costs,” it said. The four justices in their briefing also alluded to the controversial 2014 death of judge B.H. Loya, who was presiding over the Central Bureau of Investigation court in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case. Since then, the case which was initially listed before a bench headed by justice Arun Mishra has been taken over be a bench headed by the CJI. The judges also criticized the delay in finalizing the memorandum of procedure (MOP) on which detailed discussions were held by the collegium (comprising the top five judges of the Supreme Court) and submitted by the then chief justice to the government in March 2017. The MOP is a document put together by the Union government and then shared with the apex court. It determines the procedure of appointment of judges to the higher judiciary.