Senior Counsel Dushyant Dave raises the issue of improper listing of Cases in the Supreme Court

Once, former Chief Justice Kapadia, during the hearing of a matter informed the lawyers present in the Court that he had stopped possibility of manual intervention in listing of cases before various judges of the Court.  It goes into the credit of Justice Kapadia for bringing a system by which the cases are listed before the Judges as per the Subject category, randomly picked up by the computer system. Each branch of law and judges are assigned code numbers and once the matters are registered, the system would pick up the number of cases for listing as per the slot available before those judges who are dealing with that particular subject category. It is a random selection and there is no scope for manual intervention.

Though the business of listing is system generated, the CJI, being the master of roster is vested with the authority to list any matter before any court, and the said power is rarely exercised on request of both the parties or on recusal of judges from hearing a matter or in such similar exigencies. Though the system as such is foolproof, the lawyers have invented ingenious ways to bypass it using novel techniques. A common practice is to state in the ‘listing pro forma’ the number of a matter which is already pending before a particular bench. Hence being a connected matter, in all likelihood, the said case would be listed before the judge hearing the connected matter. Many a times, this system is abused by which unconnected matters are tagged on the statement of lawyers, who have scant regard to the system

Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave, perturbed by certain unholy practice adopted by his colleagues mentioned elaborately such an incident before Chief Justice today morning. The Chief Justice, after consulting with his brother judge assured Mr. Dave that he would look into the allegations. It seems that the CJI has seriously considered the issues raised and has passed a direction to list the matter before another bench. The act of CJI confirms the thump rule that justice should be seen to be done.