Supreme Court reinstates Practice of Circulation of letters for adjournment

The Practice of letter circulation has been reinstated by the Supreme Court with immediate effect.

Earlier former CJI R M Lodha had taken tough stand on adjournments and stopped the practice. It  was the practice in the Supreme Court whereby the lawyers usually circulate a letter for adjournment and then inform the court, when the matter comes up for hearing.

According to the latest circular put on the Supreme Court website, “the Counsel/Parties-in-person seeking adjournment of the matter, appearing in the Final Cause List, shall now submit-a letter/request, after getting the same noted by the counsel for other side with Assistant Registrar (Listing) for circulating the same to the Hon'ble Court at least two days in Advance from the appointed date of listing/hearing.

Letters seeking adjournment in respect of matters to be listed onMonday shall be accepted by the Registry till previous Saturday upto 11.00 A.M. and those to be listed on Friday shall be accepted upto Wednesday till 3.00 PM”.

The circular is not clear about the practice of oral mentioning which was also stopped by the former CJI. It is interesting to note that, every CJI has been coming out with new practice creating utter confusion.

Read the Circular here