Keywords – Constitution, Bench , Cases , Judges.
The Supreme Court has formed a new five- judge constitution bench to hear four cases starting from July 12 ,2023. The bench will be led by the Chief Justice of India diva and will comprise of Justice Rishikesh Roy, Justice P.S Nara Simma, Justice Pankaj Mythal and Justice Manoj Mishra, constitution benches are constituted to decide important legal and constitutional issues whenever there is a conflict of decisions by two benches of similar strength the issue needs to be settled by a larger bench for example, a conflict between two decisions by a two judge bench will be settled by a three-judge bench.
Constitution benches are constituted with five or more judges, this number of judges will increase depending upon the strength of the judgement that is being discussed to be overturned or affirmed for example, if there is a judgement by five judges already on an issue then a seven judge constitutional bench is formed to hear this matter in the landmark Keshavnanda Bharti case which says that the basic structure of the constitution cannot be amended a 13th bench judge was constituted to hear the matter. The bench will hear matters related to appointment of arbitrators the scope of a light motor vehicle or IMV license and changing of the rules of the game, the issue of changing of rules of the game arises in Tej Prakash Pathak versus Rajasthan High Court the issue in this case started with a recruitment process by Rajasthan high court to fill the post of translator after the exam was conducted the chief justice ordered the examination for this post must be treated as a competitive examination with a qualification of 75% marks minimum of eligibility.
The following criteria was not in the High Court staff services rules so, the results of the recruitment process were challenged by the applicants who were not selected for the job on the ground that the rules of the game were changed after the game was played that is to say the rules of the examination were changed after they attempted it in the Rajasthan High Court. The Rajasthan High Court dismissed this petition, an appeal was then filed by the petitioners in the Supreme Court. The earlier decision on this issue was in a 2008 case called K Manushree versus state of Andhra Pradesh and another which said that changing the rules of the game after the game was played is clearly impermissible however, the three judge bench of the supreme court hearing this matter doubted the correctness of the earlier decision the bench then, referred this case to a larger bench in the month of September of the last year a five judge led by Justice Indira Banerjee had started hearing the matter however the bench was later dissolved in view of the retirements of Justice Banerjee and Justice Hemant Gupta.
The second issue is whether a who is ineligible to be appointed as an arbitrator can be appointed as an arbitrator to a dispute for those unfamiliar with the concept arbitrator is when in a party contractual dispute choose to approach a trusted neutral party or an arbitrator to resolve the dispute instead of going to court as a way to settle commercial disputes. The issue of appointment of arbitrators arose when a three-judge bench of Supreme Court led by the then Chief Justice U Lalit was hearing JSW steel limited versus southwestern railway and another this bench noted that there are conflicting decision on the issue of appointment of arbitrators under section 11 of the arbitration and conciliation act, in 2017 it was held by a three-judge bench in a case named TRF limited versus Energy Engineering that a person who himself becomes ineligible to be appointed as an arbitrator by the operation of law cannot nominate an arbitrator.
However, an opposing views was taken by a three judge bench in the central organizations for Railway electrification versus ECI SMO MCML which is a joint venture or the core case, where the validity of an arbitration clause giving power to an ineligible person to appoint arbitrator was affirmed by the Supreme Court. Taking note of this JSW steel and core case were referred to a larger bench finally, the issue of the scope of IMV license is in Bajaj Allianz General Insurance versus Rambhadevi the issue in this case is whether a person with an IMV license that usually enables drivers to drive private four wheelers allows a person to drive a transport vehicle weighing less than 7500 kg unladen. In a case called Mukund devangan versus oriental insurance company a three-judge bench had held that a person holding driving license in respect of light motor vehicle could on the strength of that license be entitled to drive a transport vehicle of light motor vehicle class having an evacuate weight of 7500 kg but not exceeding more than this . 1A bench comprising Justice Amrita Varroy, Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Sanjay Kishan call held in Mukund devangan that a separate endorsement in the IMV driving license is not required to drive a transport vehicle having unladen weight below 7500kg; however, in March 2022 a three-judge bench doubted the correctness of his decision and referred the matter to a larger bench. The constitutional bench will hear these matters from the 12th of July 2023.
Written by – Drishti Pandey College- University of Allahabad Semester – 4th an intern under legal vidhiya
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