New Delhi: The Chief Justice of India (CJI) is the “first among equals” and has the constitutional authority to decide allocation of cases and set up of benches to hear them, the Supreme Court ruled today.A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud dismissed a PIL seeking framing of guidelines for rational and transparent allocation of cases and constitution of benches to hear them.Justice Chandrachud, writing the judgment for the bench, referred to constitutional schemes and said “the Chief Justice of India is first among equals and has the authority to decide allocation of cases and setting up of benches”.Since the CJI is a high constitutional functionary, there cannot be “any distrust about the responsibilities he discharges” to ensure that the Supreme Court to carries out the work required under the constitution, the order stated.Justice Chandrachud also said that the petition filed was “scandalous”. “From institutional perspective, Chief Justice is at the helm of affairs of the Supreme Court. Chief Justice is an institution himself,” said the judgment, according to LiveLaw.The PIL was filed by Ashok Pande, a Lucknow-based lawyer, seeking guidelines for the Supreme Court and all the high courts on the allocation of cases and the setting up of benches.This order comes a few months after the four senior-most justices of the Supreme Court – after the CJI – publicly expressed grievances with the way things were going in the apex court, making a specific reference to the allegedly improper manner in which cases were being allotted to benches by the chief justice. Pande had brought up the judges’ press conference in his petition. “With the press conference of the four senior-most judges of the supreme court the matter of preparation of the set rules governing the powers of the chief justice with respect to the formation of benches and vesting of jurisdiction came in public domain and hence this petition is in national/public interest,” LiveLaw quoted his petition as saying.(With PTI inputs)