Bench flags new ‘listing’ norms: SC full court meets, may tweak process

Under the new system, the court takes up regular matters until lunchtime on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. After lunch on these days, it takes up miscellaneous matters on which notices have already been issued. Fresh miscellaneous matters are heard on Mondays and Fridays.

Chief Justice of India U U Lalit (File)

DAYS AFTER a bench of the Supreme Court placed its unhappiness on record over the new system of listing cases for hearing, a full court on Tuesday discussed the issue and resolved to tweak it in a bid to ease the pressure on judges, The Indian Express has learnt.

Sources said that while the full-court meeting was called to settle the Supreme Court’s annual calendar, Chief Justice of India U U Lalit also sought the views of judges on the changes made to the listing process after he took office last month.

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Under the new system, the court takes up regular matters until lunchtime on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. After lunch on these days, it takes up miscellaneous matters on which notices have already been issued. Fresh miscellaneous matters are heard on Mondays and Fridays.

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A full-court meeting held on August 27 had discussed the system before its introduction.

On September 13, a bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Abhay S Oka said in an order while adjourning an appeal against an Allahabad High Court order to November 15: “The new listing system is not giving an adequate time to take up matters fixed for hearing like the present case as there are number of matters within the span of ‘Afternoon’ session.”

At Tuesday’s meeting, the judges conveyed that they now have almost 30 fresh matters on the board to be heard within a span of two hours (2 pm to 4 pm) after lunch on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

“In two hours, you can’t really reach 30 matters as they are all after notice and heavy matters. So lawyers have to read 30 fresh matters without any prospect of all the 30 reaching. The same is the case for judges,” sources said.

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“Therefore, it was suggested that fresh matters remaining unheard on Tuesday afternoon be carried over for hearing on Wednesday and Thursday afternoon,” the sources said.

The new listing pattern was seen as an attempt to reduce the rising backlog of cases and ensure faster listing of fresh matters.

Ananthakrishnan G

Ananthakrishnan G. is a Senior Assistant Editor with The Indian Express. He has been in the field for over 23 years, kicking off his journalism career as a freelancer in the late nineties with bylines in The Hindu. A graduate in law, he practised in the District judiciary in Kerala for about two years before switching to journalism. His first permanent assignment was with The Press Trust of India in Delhi where he was assigned to cover the lower courts and various commissions of inquiry. He reported from the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court of India during his first stint with The Indian Express in 2005-2006. Currently, in his second stint with The Indian Express, he reports from the Supreme Court and writes on topics related to law and the administration of justice. Legal reporting is his forte though he has extensive experience in political and community reporting too, having spent a decade as Kerala state correspondent, The Times of India and The Telegraph. He is a stickler for facts and has several impactful stories to his credit. ... Read More

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