"Causes Great Inconvenience" : Supreme Court Criticizes Last Moment Filing Of Additional Documents In SLPs

The Supreme Court, in an order passed last month, criticized last moment filing of additional documents in Special Leave Petitions.

By not filing the application for additional documents at the time of filing the Special Leave Petition but filing the same at the last moment and on the previous day of the posting of the Special Leave Petition and many a time late in the evening causes great inconvenience to the Court, the bench comprising Justices MR Shah and BV Nagarathna observed.

The court noted that in many matters, Advocates-on- Record are filing the applications for additional documents only at the time of hearing of the Special Leave Petition(s) though the Special Leave Petitions are filed much earlier. 

"We impress upon all the learned Advocates-on- Record to take note of this order and ensure that whenever documents/ additional documents are to be relied upon are to be produced and as far as possible, they must be filed along with the Special Leave Petition. If for any reason the same have not been filed along with the Special Leave Petition then in that case the same shall be filed well in advance before the Special Leave Petitions are heard by the Courts. This will avoid inconvenience to the Court and Hon'ble Judges can have sufficient time to go through the same.", the bench said.

The bench observed thus in an order disposing a Special Leave Petition filed against an order passed by the Gauhati High Court. Senior Advocate Shyam Divan, who appeared for the petitioner relied upon some documents which were produced by way of additional documents, but those documents had not reached the bench. The Advocate-on-Record reported that these documents were e-filed two days back and due to paucity of time it might not have been circulated. In this context, the court said:

"Normally, all documents if any, which, according to the counsel for the petitioner, are relevant and/or material and which are part of the proceedings before the Court, shall have to be filed along with the Special Leave Petition itself particularly when reliance is placed on the said documents. Even additional documents which were not filed before the High Court on which the counsel for the petitioner proposes to rely, in that case also, a proper application is to be filed well in advance seeking permission to file additional documents which can be considered after considering Order 41 Rule 27 of the CPC when applicable. By not filing the application for additional documents at the time of filing the Special Leave Petition but filing the same at the last moment and on the previous day of the posting of the Special Leave Petition and many a time late in the evening causes great inconvenience to the Court. It is also found that, many a time, application for additional documents reach late in the night of the previous day of the hearing of the Special Leave Petition although those documents were part of the record of the impugned judgment and which should have been filed along with the Special Leave Petition."

Case: Priyashi Aashi Developers Pvt. Ltd. vs Mitrajyoti Deka | SLP 2074-2075/2022 | 18 Feb 2022

Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 231

Coram: Justices MR Shah and BV Nagarathna