Sarthak Umang
Published on: 23 November 2022 at 19:37 IST
The Kerala High Court recently made a comment over the delay in case adjudication, noting that if the judiciary doesn’t reflect, people will lose faith in the system.
The court ordered its Registrar General and Registrar (Judiciary) to notify the Chief Justice of any old writ petitions still outstanding in other jurisdictions and to take the necessary action in accordance with his instructions.
Justice PV Kunhikrishnan stated that certain writ petitions have been lingering in the high court for close to 20 years and blamed the Registry for the “horrible condition of affairs.”
The bench further stated that there is a general complaint among advocates regarding the registry’s failure to list the cases even after the filing of a “urgent memo.”
When dealing with the matter of a cooperative bank employee who has been suing the company for the past 25 years “to demonstrate his innocence and to recover his eligible claims.”
Justice Kunhikrishnan made the observations:
“An introspection by the judiciary is also necessary because the first writ petition filed by the workman was pending before this court for the last 13 years. I had the opportunity to sit in the old writ petition hearing jurisdiction in which I disposed several old cases and one of the writ petition disposed this month was filed in the year 2003. That means some of the writ petitions are pending before this court for about 20 years,“
The Court directed the Registrar General and the Registrar (judiciary) to inform the Chief Justice about old writ petitions that were pending in various jurisdictions and to take the necessary action in response to his or her instructions.
In W.P. (C) No. 23311 of 2010, the petitioner workman was represented by Advocate P. Ramakrishnan, while the respondents were represented by Advocates M.P. Ashok Kumar, M.S. Narayanan, and N. Subramaniam.
Case Title: M.K. Surendrababu v. Kodungalloor Town Co-Op Bank Ltd. & Ors.