Come July 3, the Supreme Court will witness a completely new process for listing and mentioning of fresh cases before the Chief Justice of India.
The Apex Court, which is set to open on Monday after the summer vacation, will adopt to this new process, wherein all fresh miscellaneous matters which are verified by Tuesday will automatically be listed on the coming Monday, while those verified after Tuesday will be listed for Friday of the next week.
The lawyers seeking listing of verified fresh matters prior to such allotted dates will be required to submit their mentioning proformas by 3 pm, so that their cases are heard on the next day.
For those seeking listing on the same day, the proformas will have to be submitted by 10:30 am to the mentioning officer along with a letter of urgency. The CJI will then take a call on the same either during the lunch hours or ‘as the exigency may warrant’.
For after-notice and regular hearing matters that are sought to be urgently listed, the Counsels will have to first go before the mentioning officer with the proforma and urgency letter.
The Supreme Court Registrar (Judicial Administration) will notify the lists so generated for mentioning before appropriate benches, after seeking instructions from the CJI.
No mentionings other than those in the mentioning lists uploaded a day prior shall be permitted for such matters.
Earlier, the Advocates were supposed to submit the mentioning proformas by 10:25 am for all fresh matters or those not designated a new bench. The Chief Justice of India would then hear all the mentionings 10.30 am onwards and allot dates.
Recently, the practice witnessed mentioning of as many as 300 odd items on some days. After-notice and partially heard regular matters would then be mentioned before the concerned benches.