The Supreme Court on Friday came down heavily on an Advocate on Record, who filed a contempt petition against the Secretary General and the Registrar Judicial Administration of the Supreme Court for allegedly non-listing of a matter, despite the Apex Court order for the same.
Calling it a ‘browbeating tactic’ and an abuse of the process of law, the Division Bench of Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra dismissed the petition with a cost of Rs 25,000.
However, the Bench later recalled the imposition of cost after President of the Supreme Court Bar Association, Adish Aggarwala, tendered an unconditional apology on behalf of the SCBA member.
Calling the practice a very ‘wrong trend,’ the Apex Court noted that a matter not being listed on a date specified by the court cannot be the ground to initiate contempt proceedings against the Secretary General and the Registrar (Listing) of this court.
It observed that certain difficulties could lead to non-listing of matters, even when the court had directed the matter to be listed on a particular date.
It further noted that some Benches direct the Registry not to list more than 30 matters. In that case, if a matter came at 31st, the Registry did not have a choice.
The Bench said filing a contempt petition for not listing a matter was an attempt to browbeat the registry, which was highly deprecated. It further rebuked the petitioner and said that if such a practice was permitted, it could eventually be used against the judges too.
Justice Gavai asked the Advocate-on-Record that if a matter was listed for Friday and the Bench could not take it up, would he initiate a contempt petition against Justice Gavai and Justice Mishra, saying that they have committed contempt of their own court for not hearing the matter.
The Bench further pointed out that the petitioner could have raised his grievance by filing a complaint before the administrative side.