On Monday, amid objections to the listing of the Chhattisgarh NAN Scam case before Justice MR Shah, Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud stated that the case will be heard by a bench consisting of himself, Justice Ajay Rastogi, and Justice S Ravindra Bhat.

The case had previously been heard by the then Chief Justice of India Chief Justice UU Lalit, as well as Justices Ajay Rastogi and S Ravindra Bhat. Following the retirement of CJI Lalit, the case was assigned to a bench led by Justice MR Shah.

The Chhattisgarh government objected to Justice Shah hearing the case, arguing that it should be heard by Justices Ajay Rastogi and S. Ravindra Bhat, who were on the previous bench. During today's hearing, CJI Chandrachud explained how the case was assigned to Justice Shah and stated that it will now be heard by him, but by Justices Bhat, and Rastogi.

The state of Chhattisgarh had objected to the matter being heard by a bench presided over by Justice MR Shah following the retirement of Chief Justice of India UU Lalit (who was presiding over the 3-judge bench that had been hearing the matter). The State put forth a Petition that the matter should be listed before the benches of the other two remaining members of the previous bench, Justices Rastogi or Justice Bhat.

The CJI told Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal (who represents the State of Chhattisgarh), "When you mentioned it, all orders were mentioned in the mentioning slip except the last order of Justice MR Shah and Justice Hima Kohli. So earlier orders were by Justice Rastogi and Justice Ravindra Bhat. So I went by that on the second order (for listing before Justice Rastogi). Now there is an earlier order...when it came before Justice MR Shah, there was a direction to list it before Justice MR Shah. What I can do is this. Earlier, the matter was heard by Chief Justice sitting with the two colleagues. I will direct that it be placed before me with the two colleagues".

Previous hearings in the case made headlines after the ED made a serious allegation that the accused were in contact with the Chief Minister and a High Court judge. Tushar Mehta, the Solicitor General of India, had also handed over sealed cover documents to the bench led by CJI Lalit to corroborate the allegations. Due to a lack of time, the said bench could not hear the matter on October 20 and directed that it be listed for hearing on November 14 before the "appropriate bench."

Case Title: ED v. Anil Tuteja And Ors.

Citation: SLP(Crl) No. 6323-24/2020