Supreme Court slams rich for abusing the law

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has expressed serious concern that rich and unscrupulous elements with money power abuse the judicial process and waste the time of the courts.

A bench of Justices J. Chelameswar and A.M. Sapre slapped Rs 25 lakh as exemplary costs on three companies — to be paid by each of the three parties, Griesham GmbH (MGG), Goyal Gases Ltd. (GGL) and the Ruias. The money is to be paid to the National Legal Services Authority as compensation for the loss of judicial time and will be used by the authority to fund poor litigants in deserving cases.

Justice Chelameswar said “This case should also serve as proof of the abuse of the discretionary jurisdiction of this court under Article 136 of the Constitution by the rich and powerful in the name of ‘fight for justice’ at each and every interlocutory step of a suit. Enormous amount of judicial time of this court and two High Courts was spent on this litigation. Most of it is avoidable and could have been well spent on more deserving cases.”

The cases related to suits filed by the companies on allotment of shares and trade agreements. Appeals were filed in the apex court against each interim order passed by the Bombay High Court and this resulted in a prolonged litigation.    

The bench said “the examination of various questions raised by the petitioners in these special leave petitions, in our opinion, is wholly uncalled for. The net effect of all the litigation is that for the last 18 years, the litigation is going on.”

The bench said, “...We believe that it is only the parties who are to be blamed for the state of affairs. This case, in our view, is a classic example of the abuse of the judicial process by unscrupulous litigants with money power, all in the name of legal rights by resorting to half-truths, misleading representations and suppression of facts. Each and every party is guilty of one or the other of the above-mentioned misconducts.”