Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra ‘struck back’ four days after four senior Supreme Court Judges went public with their views against him by overlooking them while constituting a new Constitution Bench of the ape Court.

Justice Challameshwar, Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Madhan P. Lokur and Justice Kurien Joseph revolted against CJI Dipak Mistra last week by addressing a press conference at the national capita wherein they leveled allegations of favouritism, bias and ‘undemocratic management’ by the incumbent CJI. “If the situation persisted in this manner, democracy would be at peril,” they warned.

Resuming their work after the unprecedented press meet, the Judges were expected to meet the CJI at his office separately or as a quartet to iron out the differences between them. However, it didn’t occur yesterday. Attorney General K.K. Venugopal had, in the meantime, predicted the ‘impasse’ to come to an end by Monday but that wasn’t the case to be.

In constituting the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court (which is to take up prominent cases), the CJI chose to overlook any of the above-said four Judges and instead opted for Justice A.K. Sikri, Justice A.M. Kanvilkar, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and Justice Ashok Bhushan. CJI Misra would be the ex-officio ‘head’ of the 5-Judge Constitution Bench

When contacted, the Attorney General conceded that the issues hadn’t been resolved between the quartet of Judges and the CJI and hoped the same would happen soon.