Will Impose Costs For Frivolous Mentioning, CJI Surya Kant Warns

Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Thursday expressed clear displeasure over out-of-turn mentioning by lawyers and said the court would begin imposing costs on frivolous requests. “From Monday, I will issue another notification that if there is a mentioning that I do not find genuine, I will impose costs then and there,” the CJI remarked in open court.

He warned that a circular would be issued shortly prescribing costs of not less than Rs 50,000 for improper mentioning. The CJI said the amount collected would be used to create a corpus for young lawyers and for training programmes for legal professionals. Addressing the bar, he observed that imposing costs on unnecessary mentioning would serve as a source of generating funds for this purpose.

Soon after Justice Surya Kant took over as the CJI, the Supreme Court issued a circular prohibiting oral mentioning of matters before the CJI seeking priority listing. As per the circular, oral mentioning is permissible only in exceptional cases of extreme urgency, that too after following the prescribed procedure. The circular also assured automatic listing of cases in urgent categories within two days of filing.