Supreme Court Registry Scraps Over 13,000 Pre-2014 Cases With Uncured Defects, Oldest One Dates Back To 1987

The Supreme Court Registry by an order scrapped 13,147 unregistered but diarized cases having been registered prior to the year 2014. The cases were registered more than 8 years ago before 19th August 2014. It was also clarified that the cases were sent for rectification after being diarized but no response had been received. It was noticed that one of the oldest diary numbers related back as far as the year 1987.The order stated that, "As per the practice then in vogue, the matters had been returned to the Ld. counsel/petitioner-in-person for rectifying the defects noticed in the matters respectively. They have never been rectified ever. Nothing has been heard thereafter either from the Ld. Counsel or the party-in person, in respect of these diary numbers."It was pointed out in the order that all the 13,147 matters had only been diarized and no corresponding record apart from the diary number was available nor was maintained as no paper were retained by the Registry while notifying the defects. It was only after the Supreme Court Rules of 2013 came into force that a provision was made to retain one copy of the plaint and court fees stamps with the Registry.The order stated that the defects in the matters had been notified to the parties years back and they were to cure the same within 28 days. The parties had failed to take any effective steps for years at end to rectify and cure the defects so notified. "The statutory period for curing the defects is well over. Seemingly the parties do not intend to prosecute the lis any further. Umpteen number of years were allowed to the parties to cure the defects, but to no avail", the order stated.It was also indicated in the order that there had been no attempts made by the parties to seek enlargement of time to cure the defects even after the completion of 28 days and the defects have remained unaltered till date and that too for no reasonable cause. "The matters have died with the efflux of time itself. Nothing, literally survives now", the order addedWith the total number of cases pending before the Supreme Court of India as in August of 2022 were 71,411 of which 56,365 were civil matters and 15,076 were criminal matters, the removal of these cases from the records would have created a dent in the number of cases kept pending before the apex court of the country.Click Here To Read/Download Order

Supreme Court Registry Scraps Over 13,000 Pre-2014 Cases With Uncured Defects, Oldest One Dates Back To 1987

Deepankar Malviya

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