LI Network
Published on: 03 September 2023 at 15:50 IST
The Supreme Court has directed the Chief Justice of the Patna High Court to investigate certain irregularities related to the non-uploading of a High Court order.
The Supreme Court has deemed the matter to be of “serious concern” and has instructed the Chief Justice of the Patna High Court to take appropriate action in this regard.
A division bench comprising Justice S. Ravindra Bhat and Justice Aravind Kumar was handling a bail application when it discovered an anomaly in the High Court’s proceedings.
The order of the High Court dated 20.04.2023, which had been challenged before the Supreme Court, had not been made available to the aggrieved party. Although the case status indicated that the matter was “disposed of” on 20.04.2023, a copy of the High Court’s order had not been uploaded to its website.
On 25.08.2023, the Supreme Court sought an explanation from the Registrar of the Patna High Court regarding the status of the case and the impugned order.
In a letter dated 30.08.2023, the Registrar informed the Supreme Court that the case had been assigned to Justice Sandeep Kumar on 18.04.2023 and disposed of on 20.04.2023. However, the order was not pronounced until 28.08.2023, as stated in the Registrar’s letter.
The Apex Court also examined the order dated 20.04.2023, which mentioned that the order could not be typed on time due to the unavailability of the file:
“Learned counsel for the petitioner is permitted to remove defect(s), as pointed out by the office, if any, within a period of four weeks from today. Due to non-availability of the file, the order could not be typed in time,” the High Court order stated.
The Supreme Court found these facts to be a matter of “serious concern” and instructed the Chief Justice of the High Court to investigate the issue.
In the meantime, the petitioner in the bail application was granted time to surrender and seek regular bail.
