The 'master of the roster' doctrine has repeatedly triggered controversy within the higher judiciary. Critically evaluate its rationale and scope for misuse.

The 'master of the roster' is the exclusive administrative prerogative of a Chief Justice to constitute Benches and allocate cases, affirmed by the Supreme Court in 2018 [1]. Indispensable for orderly court functioning, it is nonetheless an unstructured discretion whose repeated controversies expose an accountability gap.

Rationale: why the power exists

• Institutional order — the Court held that neither a two-Judge nor a three-Judge Bench can allocate matters to itself or direct a Bench's composition [1]; a single listing authority prevents internal anarchy and bench-hunting by litigants.
• First among equals — administrative control of the Court vests in the Chief Justice alone, though on the judicial side he remains one among equals [2]. It is a convention of coordination, not superiority.
• Efficiency and expertise — subject-wise rosters enable specialisation and faster listing, critical given severe pendency.
• Judicial independence — keeping allocation inside the judiciary insulates case assignment from executive influence.

Scope for misuse

• No justiciable criteria — the power is exercised administratively, with no codified norms and negligible scope for judicial review, making selective listing of sensitive cases difficult to challenge.
• Concentration of power — in High Courts, roster control combines with the Chief Justice's influence over judicial postings and transfer recommendations; recurring allegations of cases being shifted to a Chief Justice's own Bench illustrate the risk.
• Weak remedies — misconduct short of removal falls to the non-statutory, confidential in-house procedure, which offers the complainant no enforceable recourse [3], while impeachment under the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968 needs a special majority in both Houses and has never culminated in removal [4].

The doctrine is sound in principle but under-secured in practice: legitimate authority without transparent limits invites suspicion. Publishing subject-wise rosters, randomised allocation among like cases with reasons recorded for deviation, and a statutory accountability body on the lines of the Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill's proposed Oversight Committee [5] would preserve the Chief Justice's coordinating role while strengthening public trust — accountability as the companion of independence, not its rival.