SC to dismiss 1,000 cases if defects not cured in 4 weeks

New Delhi: The Supreme Court recently directed that defects in 1,000 odd petitions filed between 2014 and 2020 should be cured within four weeks failing which they will be dismissed. [Brig TS Sathyamoorthy vs Government of India & Ors]

The order to that effect was passed by Justice PS Narasimha at an in-chamber hearing on October 20, as reported by Bar and Bench.

"As a last opportunity, we grant a further time of four weeks from today to cure the defects, failing which the cases shall stand dismissed without any further reference to the Court," the order said.

The order was passed after noting that though the registry had sent the matters to the respective advocates-on-record for curing the defects and for refiling, the same had not been done yet.

"As there were defects in the filing, the files were returned to the respective Advocates-on-Record for curing the defects and for refiling. These matters have not come back to the Registry after rectification of defects inspite of reminders having been sent to the learned counsels," the Court noted.

23 petitions from the batch of pleas were permitted to be withdrawn, while the registry was directed to re-list 18 matters if necessary, after due verification. In September this year, the Supreme Court Registrar had informed that it would not be registering 13,147 diary items that had uncured defects since August 19, 2014.

In a strongly-worded notice, Registrar Chirag Bhanu Singh had stated,

"These cases had been filed more than 8 years ago. As per the practice then in vogue, the matters had been returned to the Ld. counsel/petitioner-in-person for rectifying the defects noticed in the matters respectively. They have never been rectified ever. Nothing has been heard thereafter either from the Ld. Counsel or the party-inperson, in respect of these diary numbers ... The matters have died with the efflux of time itself. Nothing, literally survives now."

The Supreme Court disposed of a total of 5,113 cases in a two-week period after Justice Uday Umesh Lalit took over as the Chief Justice of India (CJI).

The pendency of cases at the Supreme Court, as per the docket on October 1 stands at at 69,461.