Shame That Writ Petition Dating Back To 1996 Is Still Pending, Says Bombay HC

It is a shame that a petition of 1996 has not been disposed of finally till date, said a Bombay High Court bench when it noticed that a writ petition filed two decades ago is still pending.

Once the Registry brought to the notice of this court and particularly one of us (S. C. Dharmadhikari, J.), the details of pending cases and the oldest one, we noticed that this case of 1996 being pending brings a bad name to the institution as a whole, the bench comprising of Justice S. C. Dharmadhikari and Justice Bharati H. Dangre said.

The bench also said that it has only one set of the writ petition and asked the petitioner’s lawyer to furnish a copy within a week.

The court then proceeded to hear the case finally and reserved it for judgment. “The judgment is reserved and shall be pronounced after a fortnight,” the court said.

Other Instances Of Old Cases

Earlier this year, the Kerala High Court had disposed of its oldest case, which was 33 years old. The proceedings in the said case, in fact, spanned over more than a century.    The Delhi High Court, in 2016, had acquitted a man in a three-decade-old dowry death case.

Last year, the Supreme Court, while ordering a tenant to vacate premises immediately, said it was “unfortunate” that the landlord had been litigating for more than four decades to get back possession of his own premises.  In another instance, the apex court had dismissed 54-year-old suit filed by son against his father. It had also acquitted five accused in a 27-year-old murder case on the basis of serious discrepancies that arose in the evidence produced by the prosecution.