E-Paper
Supreme Court pulls up its registry over delay in listing ready cases
Putting one of its own departments in the dock, the Supreme Court on Tuesday demanded an explanation from its registry over inordinate delay in listing those cases for hearings that are otherwise ready to be placed before the judges.
Putting one of its own departments in the dock, the Supreme Court on Tuesday demanded an explanation from its registry over inordinate delay in listing those cases for hearings that are otherwise ready to be placed before the judges.
A bench, headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Uday Umesh Lalit, ordered the top court registry to ready the explanation within 48 hours and submit the response along with a complete list of cases lying in cold storage for a long period despite being ready to be heard.
The order was passed after the bench, which also comprised justice Bela M Trivedi, came across an appeal in a criminal contempt case was not put up for a hearing for about a year-and-a-half even though the case was ready to be heard all this while.
The contempt case was initiated against a lawyer by the Karnataka high court in July 2021 for filing repeated frivolous cases against IT major Wipro Limited and its founder and chairman Azim Premji. The lawyer, R Subramanian, had appealed against the initiation of the contempt proceedings.
Also read: Those using two-finger test for rape survivors should be prosecuted: SC
On Tuesday, the bench sought to know from Subramanian regarding the delay in getting his case listed, wondering whether the objective was to keep the high court proceedings in abeyance on the sole of ground of pendency of the petition before the top court. Noting that no apparent endeavour was made by the lawyer to get the case listed, and nor did the registry bother to place the matter for a consideration on the judicial side, the bench decided to seek answers from the department concerned.
“We issue a notice to the registry to file an explanation why the matter was not listed before the court for a year and a half despite it being ready. The registry should also indicate if any similar matters which were marked ‘ready’ yet were not listed before the court,” directed the bench.
The court order added: “All details of such matters to be furnished along with explanation and if any remedial steps have since been taken, those steps must be adverted to. Let the explanation be filed by Thursday.”
All departments in the Supreme Court are manned by the registrars concerned, who are answerable to the secretary general. The secretary general, in turn, is answerable to the CJI, who is also the administrative head of the top court.
Senior advocate Vikas Singh, who is also the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, welcomed the court’s directive, saying that the registry, over a period of time, has become another Supreme Court in its own right, often disobeying even the directions of the judges to list cases.
“For the last two years, lawyers and litigants have been facing the problem of matters getting listed selectively while hundreds of them are simply dumped in the cold storage for unknown reasons. However, during his short tenure of a little over two months, current CJI Lalit has made a huge impact on both listing as well as disposal of cases. Justice Lalit accepted most of the suggestions mooted by the Bar and thousands of old cases finally got listed during his tenure,” Singh said.
Also read: Minority status: Centre asks SC for more time as 19 states, UTs yet to decide
One of the first steps taken by justice Lalit after he took over as the CJI on August 27 pertained to streamlining the system of listing cases. As reported by HT on August 26, he instructed bringing around 550 matters marked as “sensitive” back to circulation before courts.
Speaking at an event on September 2, justice Lalit said that the Supreme Court will try and dispose of as many cases as possible, and he will strive his best in his short tenure of 74 days as the CJI to live up to people’s expectations.
