Read Time: 03 minutes

Synopsis

The Supreme Court today remarked that it should start imposing costs for filing of frivolous Special Leave Petitions (SLP).

This remark was made by a bench of Justices AS Oka and Pankaj Mithal while hearing an SLP which was filed challenging an arbitral award.

"Costs should be imposed for filing frivolous SLPs now...", said a visibly miffed Justice Oka.

Notably, the matter was being argued by Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi. 

When the court expressed its willingness to impose costs, the senior counsel requested to withdraw the plea.

After some deliberation, the bench refrained itself from imposing the said costs and recorded in its order that it was not doing so only because the SLP was chosen to be withdrawn.

Time and again, the supreme court has called out the filing of frivolous PILs and has imposed costs on such petitioners as well.

Earlier this year, a bench of Justices AS Oka and Rajesh Bindal had imposed cost of INR 1.5 lakhs on the officials of the Haryana Urban Development Authority for filing frivolous appeals in a dispute pertaining to demand of additional price for the allotment of plot in Hisar.

In the said case, Court had again deprecated the conduct of the litigants in flooding it with frivolous litigations, which are choking the dockets as a result of which the matters, which require consideration are delayed.