Nisha Ghosal
RTI Activist Saket Gokhale has asked the amount of pending interim bail and time taken for the listing of these applications for hearing as he has filed an RTI in the Supreme Court.
Gokhale has asked to “state the current backlog/number of cases of interim bai! Applications pending with the Registry of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India that haven’t had the first listing yet as of 12/11/2020/.”
He has also asked to “state the average waiting period between the filing of interim bail applications with the Registry and their listing in front of the appropriate Hon’ble Bench.”
The Republic TV Anchor Arnab Goswami’s interim bail was taken on priority.
The President of the SCBA, Dushyant Dave, had also written a letter to the Secretary-General of the Supreme Court, condemning Goswami’s case being an extra-ordinary one.
Goswami’s wife had written a letter to the CJI, stating the selective outrage shown by the SCBA President.
A PIL was filed for over the selective policy of picking up petitions by the Registry. However, the same was dismissed with guidance to not demoralize the Registry.
The bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra said:
“We see, in general, it has become a widespread practice to blame the Registry for no good reasons. To err is human, as many petitions are filed with defects, and defects are not cured for years together.”
“A large number of such cases were listed in the recent past before the Court for removal of defects which were pending for years. In such a situation, when the pandemic is going on, baseless and reckless allegations are made against the Registry of this Court, which is part and parcel of the judicial system.”
“We take judicial notice of the fact that such evil is also spreading in the various High Courts, and Registry is blamed unnecessarily for no good reasons.”
