CJI reiterates his displeasure on voluminous documents says “tons of papers filed in corporate litigation"
The Chief Justice of India Justice NV Ramana while speaking at an event on “Mediation and Information Technology” at Ekta Nagar, Narmada, Gujarat remarked “Tons of paper are filed in courts in big corporate litigations. It appears that they follow the saying if you cannot convince a judge, confuse him.”
It is to be noted that in November 2021, the bench headed by CJI had expressed its displeasure over the voluminous documents being filed in the Amazon-Future Group case and deferred the hearing for the same. CJI NV Ramana said "you file 21 volumes in a case..these are unnecessary things.” The CJI further asked Amazon to file a separate Special Leave Petition instead of bringing everything in one matter.
The bench also consisting of Justices Bopanna and Hima Kohli directed the parties to file compilation with a minimum number of documents. All parties agreed to exchange documents and file one common compilation in the main matter.
The Chief Justice of India while disposing the latest plea between the two on April 6, 2022 parties remarked “I hope, I don’t get to hear any other matter pertaining to this dispute during my tenure as the Chief Justice.” The CJI also informed senior advocates Gopal Subramanium, Ranjit Kumar, Mukul Rohatgi and KV Vishwanathan to appear before him in any matter but this.
The latest proceedings between the parties to be disposed off was an application filed by Amazon seeking orders from the Supreme Court to restrain Future Retail Limited from alienating its assets and a plea by amazon seeking resumption of arbitral proceedings before Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC).
The Supreme Court had disposed off the plea by passing an order with the consent of both the warring parties asking them to approach the arbitral tribunal to resume the arbitral proceedings and the tribunal will consider the termination application filed by Future Retail Limited under Section 32 (2) (C) of the arbitration act and pass orders.
With regard to the dispute pertaining to alienation of assets, the parties had agreed to raise it before a single judge at the Delhi High Court.
Case title: Amazon Vs Future Retail Ltd.