CJI Surya Kant clarifies urgent listing requests to be done only through mentioning slips
Mentioning was made before the court for a matter relating to demolition of a canteen.
The Chief Justice of India clarified today that requests for urgent listing must be made in writing through a mentioning slip and not by oral mentioning.
This clarification came as a response to an urgent mention of a matter relating to the demolition of a canteen before the bench of CJI Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice AS Chandurkar.
"If you have any urgent mentioning, give your mentioning slip along with the cause of urgency, the registrar will examine and in those matters, if we find an element of urgency, will take it up", the CJI said.
Notably, two months back, then Justice Surya Kant had refused to list a case after it was mentioned before him. "Unless someone is about to be hanged, I will never list a mentioned case on the same day", the supreme court judge had said.
The judge had gone on to say that advocates do not understand the plight of judges. "Do you even know how many hours we have been working and how many hours of sleep we get? Unless someone's liberty is at stake, we will not list it the same day," Justice Kant added.
The mentioning was made today before Justice Kant's bench which also comprised` Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and N Kotiswar Singh. Normally, the mentioning for the day are made before the Chief Justice of India, but as he was sitting on a five-judge constitution bench, the second most senior judge heard the mentioning of cases. The case mentioned before Justice Kant related to that of a house being auctioned.
Last year, Justice Dipankar Datta of the Supreme Court had also remarked in court that judges were criticized despite their hard work. "It is unfortunate that despite the hard work that we put in, Judges are criticized...", Justice Datta said after court was done dismissing former Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren's plea against ED arrest.
"We have vacations right now and still burning the midnight oil...", Justice Datta had added. Adding that the government agencies caused half of the delay in filing cases, Justice Datta said, "For a simple appeal in which 90 days' time is given, the authorities come late and then we are blamed, let those who castigate us, take this also into consideration..". Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, present in court, had come to the judiciary's defense by saying, "People don't realize that judges work in two shifts..".