SC Not The Solution (Amrit Dhara) For All Problems: CJI Khehar

“Today it is like you wake up in the morning and say chalo let me go to the Supreme Court. Arrey why don’t you approach the competent authority”, CJI Khehar

Chief Justice J S Khehar today took serious note of Public Interest Litigations raising all kinds of issues, including several frivolous ones being filed in Supreme Court and said it is not “Amrit Dhara” for all ailments”

“Today it is like you wake up in the morning and say chalo let me go to the supreme court. Arrey why don’t you approach the competent authority”, CJI Khehar, heading a bench, told the lawyer for one Jaya Thakur who wanted the court to frame guidelines for “dignified transportation of dead bodies with all religious respect”

The Chief Justice then went on to narrate something from the days when he was a youth:

“When I was young this amrit dhara, a popular herbal medicine was the medicine for all the ailments. If you have a stomach pain, amrit dhara..if you have a headache it is amrit dhara These days people think the Supreme Court has become something like amrit dhara..You wake up in the morning and come straight to Supreme Court with all your problems. Is it like let us destroy the Supreme Court? Don’t we have anything else to do? ”, the CJI said raising peals of laughter in the courtroom No.1

The PIL had said “Very shameful and shocking incidents took place in Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, UP etc where such inhuman incidents happened including one in MP’s Shahadoi district state government failed to provide vehicle and a man’s son in law was forced to carry his dead body on bicycle for 30 km".

“15 days later another incident in MP when no ambulance was provided to the dead body resulting in a man carrying a body in a blanket for 30 kms”, it said.

EARLIER WARNING

On February 11, the CJI had said “trash and nonsensical petitions are increasing. No. This has to stop and only this way (imposing heavy costs) it can stop. For years we have not done it. See if you have a good cause we are with you but not for such petitions which take away judicial time.”

“Whatever the case, we have to read all these pages. My brother judges are young. They have no problem going through the entire records but I am old. Look at my white beard. After reading all this I feel tired also. So please…”

Imposing a cost of Rs ten lakh on a Bihar MLA, Rs one lakh fine on a Maharashtra professor and threatening a cost on a car mechanic who petitioned against additional floors in a private hospital CJI Khehar had launched an unprecedented war on frivolous petitions piling up in the Supreme Court

The CJI had said he is alarmed at the rate which frivolous petitions piling up in the supreme court and said the only way it can be stopped is imposition of heavy costs. He said the prime reason for the menace was inaction all these years.

“Whatever the case, we have to read all these pages. My brother judges are young (looking at justices DY Chandrachud and NV Ramana seated with him). They have no problem going through the entire records but I am old. Look at my white beard. After reading all this I feel tired also. So please…” 65-year-old CJI had said that day.