Court sources said it was not confirmed whether the CJI Monday met the four judges
On a day Attorney General KK Venugopal said that the rift between Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and the four senior-most judges of the Supreme Court had been settled at an informal meeting, the Supreme Court on Monday announced the composition of a five-judge constitution bench headed by the Chief Justice, which does not include the four judges.
The four judges - Justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, MB Lokur and Kurian Joseph who took on the Chief Justice at a press conference last week, don't feature in the list of members of the constitution bench.
As per official information, the five-judge bench, comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice AK Sikri, Justice AM Khanwilkar, Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice Ashok Bhushan, will commence hearing on a range of crucial matters from January 17.
As per the list of business for Tuesday, the five-judge bench will hear major cases such as those challenging the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act and its 2013 judgement re-criminalising gay sex between consenting adults.
The same combination of judges had last year heard various constitution bench matters from October 10, including the power tussle between the Centre and the Delhi government over administrative jurisdiction and a matter relating to passive euthanasia.
This bench would also hear the contentious issue of the ban on the entry of women between 10 and 50 years of age at Kerala's Sabarimala temple and resume hearing on a legal query on whether a Parsi woman would lose her religious identity if she marries a man from a different religion.
Another contentious matter relates to the challenge to the validity of a penal law on adultery, which only punishes a married man for having an extra-marital sexual relationship with a woman married to someone else.
The other issues to be dealt with by constitution bench include the pleas, which have raised a question as to when will a lawmaker, facing criminal trial, stand disqualified.
All these matters were earlier referred to larger benches for adjudication by different benches of the top court.
The daily list of business for Tuesday shows that the two PILs seeking probe into Judge Loya's death are listed before a bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra, against whom aspersions were cast by a senior advocate in public.
In their unprecedented press conference on Friday, the four senior judges of the Supreme Court mounted a virtual revolt against the Chief Justice, listing a litany of problems, including the assignment of cases. They had also raised questions over listing of PILs concerning Judge Loya's death.
An office-bearer of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) said a copy of their resolution was submitted by its president Vikas Singh to the Chief Justice on Sunday, but have not heard anything from the top court as yet.
Mr Singh had expressed hope that all judges of the top court would consider the SCBA resolution seeking a full court discussion to defuse the crisis plaguing the higher judiciary.
The SCBA, at an emergency meeting on Sunday, passed a resolution expressing grave concern over the differences of the four senior-most judges with the Chief Justice.
It had said that all public interest litigation (PIL) matters, including the pending PILs, should be either taken up by the Chief Justice or be assigned for adjudication to four senior judges who are part of the top court collegium.