Supreme Court changes its procedure of listing cases from 17th September onwards

Supreme Court has issued a circular, changing its listing practice followed for years. As a matter of practice, the fresh matters such as Special Leave Petitions, Writ Petitions, Interlocutory Applications are listed on Monday and Friday and old Civil and Criminal Appeals are listed on Tuesdays, Wednesday and Thursday. Off late, the Judges on request of lawyers started listing Special Leave Petitions and other Applications for final disposals on days meant for regular appeals, as a result, the Court found little time to dispose of very old Criminal and Civil appeals and the pendency increased. The normal listing practice was completely ignored.The Senior Lawyers are main contributors for changing the course of age old listing patterns. The well respected Senior Lawyers started making requests to the Court to list the matters in which they appear, and hear on priority basis, most of the Courts began obliging and ended up in hearing only Special Leave Petitions even on regular days. There was vide resentment among litigants and ordinary lawyers about the system of out of turn posting. Those who can afford senior lawyers could get an early posting of matters on even on regular days.Another factor which compelled the Court to list the matters out of turn, is the urgency of some matters of national impotence where an urgent hearing of the Court is required. If the Court grant leave and convert such Special Leave Petitions as Civil Appeals, normally it would take a minimum of 4 to 5 years for final hearing. On considering various aspects and striking a perfect balance, the Court has now evolved a new system of listing, to be followed from 17th September, 2013 onwards. According to the new system, in addition to regular hearing matters, the final disposal matters shall be listed only on Tuesday and no miscellaneous as well as final disposal matter shall be listed on the other non-miscellaneous days i.e. Wednesday and Thursday and only regular hearing Part-II matters shall be listed on Wednesday and Thursday.The litigants can now hope that their long pending maters would be heard a bit early in time.

Supreme Court changes its procedure of listing cases from 17th September onwards

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