Supreme Court should sit in larger bench compositions to avoid conflicting judgments: Retired Justice S Muralidhar

Senior Advocate and former Delhi and Orssia High Court judge Justice Dr. S Muralidhar on Saturday opined that the Supreme Court should sit in larger bench compositions to avoid varying legal interpretations..He also said that Court should not reexamine existing decisions at the drop of a hat unless the current bench has some major disagreement with the decision. In response to a question on differing judicial interpretations of existing laws on violence/crimes against women, he said .“Indian Supreme Court is so different. It has 17 two judge benches. You are bound to have differing interpretations. We should sit in larger benches so that conflict among benches is minimised, and decisions should not be relooked unless there is some serious disagreement. Next is the volume of work; the brain is extremely tired, it is very exhausting cerebral work that leaves you very less time (to think), and the likelihood of mistakes increases,” said Dr Muralidhar. .The retired judge was delivering the 30th JP Naik Memorial Lecture on the topic “Time to Introspect, Revisit: 50 Years of the Committee on the Status of Women in India". In his address, the retired judge explained the background and findings of the committee..Justice Muralidhar called for the reports of the National Commission for Women to be more detailed, describing those of recent years as being sketchy in terms of a break-up of the nature of crimes it took cognisance of..Interestingly, he shed light on the atmosphere at the Delhi High Court after the 2009 judgment decriminalising consensual homosexual sex.."Right after, in our chambers Justice (AP) Shah asked me do you think this will make a difference, I said 'yes of course'. But no other judge said anything to us (about the judgment) for the next 3-4 days. Then someone came and said the two us are now known as gaylords,” said the senior lawyer..Supreme Court verdict on same-sex marriage not a surprise, there were omissions in oral arguments: Justice S Muralidhar