Supreme Court on Wastage of Judicial Time

 INTRODUCTION

On today’s show, we will discuss certain excerpts of a judgment wherein Hon’ble Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India, wrote a postscript highlighting the tedious and the time-consuming nature of proceedings that transpires in our Courts.

 

The name of the case is Ajit Mohan and Others v. Legislative Assembly National Capital Territory of Delhi and Others, 2021 SCC OnLine SC 456. However, today we will not discuss the facts and the law discussed in this case rather our focus will be on the postscript authored by Hon’ble Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul.

 

IMPORTANT OBSERVATIONS

The Postscript began by explaining the difficulty faced by everyone including the Judiciary since Covid-19 came into foray. Thereafter it was mentioned that the hearing of the instant case consumed 26 hours, and that there were voluminous pleadings and written record that the Court had to go through to decide the dispute. According to the Court, if precious time would be consumed like this in cases, then it would be very difficult to deal with the post Covid period wherein there is a reasonable likelihood of seeing a surge in the number of court cases pending adjudication.

 

The Court also suggested the way forward and stated that the advocates or the counsels must have clarity on their arguments before addressing the Court accompanied by a brief synopsis to be submitted by all the concerned parties. The Court opined that the Indian Courts are one of a kind wherein they allow the advocates to argue for such lengthy periods and who gets to argue for the longest time is becoming the norm.

 

International Best Practices and other guiding principles in this regard were also discussed. Some of the pertinent ones are: -

 

a. Art. 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights provides that trials must be completed within a reasonable time.

 

b. The need of the hour to write clear and short judgments and the Wren & Martin Principles of precis writing must be adopted. Wren & Martin is a very famous book that many of us would have studied for learning English Grammar in our childhood. It seems that the Court and Hon’ble Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul also adore Wren & Martin.

 

c. An old adage given by Viscount Falkland in 1641 was also quoted stating that “if it is not necessary to refer to a previous decision of the court, it is necessary not to refer to it. Similarly, if it is not necessary to include a previous decision in the bundle of authorities, it is necessary to exclude it. That approach will be rigidly enforced.”

 

It was also observed that often junior advocates are asked to prepare spiral bindings to submit voluminous compendiums of judgments to the Court. According to the Court, some matters are complex that require such lengthy pleadings and arguments but not all cases are like that.

 

The Court also underscored its melancholic desire to have case management hearings that could reduce judicial time but due to large volume of cases, it is not getting followed.

 

As of 01.05.2021, 67,898 cases are pending before the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India and the Court acknowledged that due to the time spent on routine matters, larger legal questions are not being settled.

 

Concern was also raised by the Court in relation to prolonged interim proceedings like bail matters wherein hours are consumed for a single matter at multiple levels and even in civil proceedings where only a short order is passed to protect the interest of the parties after hearing them for hours. And due to all this, the final hearings get conducted after only to spark a new set of proceedings.

 

The Court concluded by observing that the purpose of the Postscript is to start an earnest discussion among the legal fraternity regarding the ways and means that could be adopted to save the precious time of our hon’ble courts and to write judgments in a manner that is understandable to common. The last sentence of the postscript seems quite relevant. It stated that “after all, it is for ‘the common man’ that the judicial system exists.”

 

That was all about the Postscript by the Supreme Court. So, what are my concluding remarks?

 

CONCLUDING REMARKS

I feel that the last sentence of the Postscript is quite pertinent as there could be no second thoughts that the judicial system exists for the ‘common man.’ But why is the common man having so much difficulty in accessing the avenues of justice. The problems highlighted in the Postscript are some of the most common issues that have plagued our judicial systems.

 

Endless filing of documents compounded by endless hearings of stupendous durations is a big culprit in this regard. I think that the Courts as an Institution have developed means and infrastructure through which filing and hearing of cases Post-Covid have become much easier. Online filing and hearing of cases is no less than a revolution. But this needs to be coupled by intelligent and succinct pleadings so that as less of the judicial time as possible gets consumed.

 

The beauty of law lies in the fact that no matter how complex a matter is, by usage of legal language, the same could be condensed in few words. Many of you must have word the Hindi Adage, ‘Gagar mein Sagar’. I think that needs to be incorporated in letter and spirit within the legal ethos of this country.