It should have, at the least, said that the investigation by the CBI should continue uninfluenced by any observations in its order. The Supreme Court has acted contrary to the warnings it has issued repeatedly in the past. Two petitions were filed before the Supreme Court seeking the constitution of a special investigation team headed by a former chief justice of India to look into allegations of an attempt to influence a bench of the court (purportedly headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra) hearing a matter involving a medical college. The Central Bureau of Investigation is inquiring into charges that a former High Court judge took bribes to manipulate Supreme Court orders in favour of the college, which had failed to get an official registration. The first petition, Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms versus Union of India, came up on November 8 before Justices J Chelameswar and S Abdul Nazeer in Court Number 2. The court directed that the matter be listed on November 10 before an appropriate bench. The chief justice, in the exercise of his administrative powers, decides which matter should be placed before which bench. Accordingly, the petition was placed before a bench of Justices AK Sikri and Ashok Bhushan. The second petition, Kamini Jaiswal versus Union of India, came up before Chelameswar and Nazeer on November 9 at 10.30 am. Jaiswal, a lawyer, held that it became necessary to file the second petition as the chief justice could not have dealt with the first petition either on the judicial or the administrative side. The court directed that the matter be listed at 12.45 pm. When the petition was heard, it passed an order recording that the Central Bureau of Investigation had registered a first information report containing serious allegations against a retired High Court judge. It said, “The FIR contained certain allegations which are disturbing. The allegations pertain to the functioning of this court.” The matter was directed to be listed on November 13 before a Constitution bench of the five senior-most judges of the Supreme Court. When the petition of the Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms came up before Sikri and Bhushan on November 10, the court took note of the above order and directed that this petition too be placed before the chief justice so that appropriate orders for its listing could be passed. At 3 pm the same day, a Constitution bench comprising the chief justice and Justices RK Agarwal, Arun Mishra, Amitava Roy and AM Khanwilkar was constituted to hear the Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms’ petition. What followed was an undignified fracas, culminating in an order laying down that the chief justice is the master of the roster and he alone has the prerogative to constitute benches and allocate cases. The court held that no other bench could direct the composition of a bench and any order to the contrary would be ineffective in law. On merit, the matter was directed to be listed before an appropriate bench to be allocated by the chief justice.