No case is big or small for district judiciary, High Court or Supreme Court: CJI DY Chandrachud reiterates after Law Minister's remarks

Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud on Saturday reiterated that every case that comes before a High Court or the Supreme Court is important for the court and judges do not differentiate between cases.

The CJI underlined that people repose their faith in the courts for protecting their personal liberty.

"No case is big enough or small enough for the courts, be it district judiciary or High Court or the Supreme Court. Because it is on us the confidence of the people and the due process of law and the protection of liberties, rests," the CJI said.

The CJI was delivering the Ashok Desai Memorial lecture organised by the Bombay Bar Association in Mumbai.

In this regard, he also highlighted a case which he had heard yesterday in which a person's sentences for electricity theft in nine separate cases were running consecutively instead of concurrently.

"If we do not act in matters of personal liberty and grant relief then what are we doing here? What is Supreme Court doing and is it not a breach under Article 136. Supreme Court exists to hear to the cry of such petitioners. We burn the midnight oil for such cases," he had said during the hearing of that case.

The Court had then allowed the appeal filed by the convict and directed that the sentences should run concurrently.

"We had to intervene in that case yesterday. The point that we have made is, sermonising apart, trust us to be the guardians of the liberty of the citizens of this nation," the CJI said in his speech today.

Notably, on Wednesday, Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju had said in parliament that a Constitutional court like the Supreme Court of India should not hear bail applications and frivolous Public Interest Litigation (PILs).

"If Supreme Court of India starts hearing bail applications, if Supreme Court of India starts hearing all frivolous PILs, definitely it will cause lots of extra burden on the Honourable Court itself, because Supreme Court by and large is treated as a Constitutional court," he had said.

[Read live coverage of CJI's event below]