The Supreme Court on Friday (October 16) has clarified that when a High Court directs a matter to be listed “two weeks hence” and the period expires during court vacation, the Registry should ordinarily exclude the vacation period while calculating the two weeks, subject to the applicable High Court rules.

“where a Bench of a high court directs listing of a petition 'two weeks hence' and the day following expiry of the period of 'two weeks', in terms of such direction, happens to fall in the midst of a vacation, the period of two weeks should ordinarily be computed by the registry of each such court excluding the period during which the court is on vacation.”, observed a Bench of Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Sheel Nagu.

The Court clarified that if the Bench fixes a specific date falling during the vacation or directs that the matter be listed before the Vacation Bench, the Registry should ordinarily list it accordingly, subject to the relevant High Court rules.

“These observations, aimed at serving the interest of justice better, are essential to secure uniformity as well as to ensure that litigants are not prejudiced due to an inadvertent act of the court,” the Court observed.

The observations arose from an appeal challenging the Karnataka High Court's order granting bail to Mohammed Kamran in a case involving alleged GST evasion of over ₹43 crore.

The bail petition was taken up on December 12, 2025, and the authorities were directed to file their objections within two weeks. However, during the High Court's winter vacation, the petition was urgently listed on December 26, 2025, following a memo filed by the accused's counsel, and bail was granted.

Aggrieved, the revenue moved to the Supreme Court, citing lack of opportunity of hearing, and suppression of facts by the accused.

The judgment authored by Justice Datta noted that the accused had pursued parallel remedies without disclosing that his request for interim release in a separate writ petition had already been rejected. It also criticised the manner in which the matter was listed during the vacation without adequate notice to the authorities, despite no specific date mentioned in an order that it ought to have been listed in vacations.

“Respondent's conduct in pursuing such parallel remedies, while keeping all judicial authorities in the dark, must be severely deprecated. It may be a right of the accused to challenge his arrest or to approach a court seeking bail; however, such conduct of pursuing remedies parallelly, particularly without adequate disclosure, clearly amounts to abuse of the process of law.”, the court observed.

The Court said that obtaining such an urgent listing was “clearly an attempt to steal a march by even misleading the Court.”, the court observed.

While remitting the bail petition to the High Court for fresh consideration, the Court permitted the accused to continue on interim bail under the existing terms and conditions until further orders.