Allahabad High Court says ‘high time’ courts being made parties in cases ‘be stopped’

Justice Subhash Vidyarthi

Highly improper: Court

At the outset, the State raised a preliminary objection that the applicant had wrongly impleaded the Additional Principal Judge, Family Court, Lucknow, as the first opposite party.

The High Court referred to the Supreme Court’s rulings that deprecated the practice of Courts being impleaded as opposite parties. The Supreme Court had held that the civil courts, which decide matters, are courts in the strictest sense of the term. It added that neither the court nor the presiding officer defends the order before the superior court that it does not contest.

The court observed that despite the Supreme Court’s clear pronouncements, several advocates practising before the Lucknow Bench continued to implead courts as opposite parties.

“In spite of the aforesaid clarification by the Hon’ble Supreme Court, several of the learned counsel practicing in the High Court at Lucknow are not following the mandate of the Hon’ble Supreme Court and they are continuing with the practice of impleading the Courts as opposite parties, which practice has been strongly deprecated by the Hon’ble Supreme Court as early as in the year 1995,” the order read.

Calling the practice “highly improper”, the judge said it was “high time that this practice should be stopped” and requested advocates to desist from impleading unnecessary and improper parties, particularly courts and tribunals whose orders are under challenge and which cannot defend those orders.

On merits, the court found that he had been given opportunities to file objections before the ex parte order was passed but failed to avail them. It further noted that he had knowledge of the proceedings since a long time.

The court also found that the revisionist concealed the date of knowledge of proceedings before the Family Court as well as in the revision plea filed in the high court.

“An order to proceed ex-parte can only be recalled if the party gives a reasonable explanation for his absence before the Court when the matter was ordered to proceed ex-parte. It must not be a case of negligence or want of bona fide attributable to such party and if such is the case then an application for recall of an ex-parte order can not to be allowed,” the court observed.

Holding that the Family Court had committed no illegality in proceeding ex parte or rejecting the recall application, the court dismissed the revision plea.