Supreme Court: Curb virus of adjournments

New Delhi: The virus of seeking adjournments by litigants on some pretext or the other has to be controlled as such delay and dilatory tactics will gradually decline the citizen’s faith in the administration of justice, the Supreme Court held and imposed Rs 50,000 as costs on the petitioner.

Giving this ruling a Bench of Justices Dipak Misra and Rohinton Nariman said, “If a case ever exposed the maladroit efforts of a litigant to indulge in abuse of the process of Court, the present one is a resplendent example. The factual narration, would limpidly show that the defendant-petitioner has endeavoured very hard to master the art of adjournment and on occasions having been successful become quite ambitious. And the ambition had no bounds; it could reach the Everestine heights or put it differently, could engulf the entire Pacific Ocean.”

Justice Misra writing the judgment said, “In the case at hand, it can indubitably be stated that the defendant-petitioner has acted in a manner to cause colossal insult to justice and to the concept of speedy disposal of civil litigation. We are constrained to say the virus of seeking adjournment has to be controlled. The saying of Gita “Awake! Arise! Oh Partha” is apt here to be stated for guidance of trial courts.”

The Bench underlined the importance of access to justice and said, “In a democratic set-up, intrinsic and embedded faith in the adjudicatory system is of seminal and pivotal concern. Delay gradually declines the citizenry faith in the system. It is the faith and faith alone that keeps the system alive. It provides oxygen constantly. Fragm-entation of faith has the effect-potentiality to bring in a state of cataclysm where justice may become a casualty.”