'Somebody Goes To Registry & Manipulates, We Won't Tolerate' : Supreme Court After Bail Plea Was Listed Before Posting Date

The Supreme Court today (September 20) sought an explanation from its Registry for listing a bail plea in a money laundering case today even though it was supposed to be listed on October 14, according to a previous court order.

A bench of Justice Abhay Oka and Justice Pankaj Mithal raised concerns over manipulation in the listing process.

Justice Abhay Oka remarked, “Somebody goes to the registry and manipulates, we will not tolerate it. As far as this bench is concerned, we have taken the registry to task so many times.”

The Court emphasized that this was a serious issue and directed the Registry to submit an office report, observing that it “owes an explanation” as to why the case was pre-poned. The Court listed the matter on October 14th.

This is not the first time the Supreme Court has raised concerns about the functioning of its Registry. The Court has expressed displeasure over the registry's failure to list cases despite judicial orders in various previous instances.

A bench of Justice Abhay Oka and Justice Augustine George Masih on August 27 sought explanation from the Registry for not listing a case explicitly ordered to be listed by the Court on that date.

In January this year, a bench of Justice Oka and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan noted with dismay that a civil appeal ought to have been listed on a Thursday, as directed, instead of Friday when it was listed.

In another case, Justice Oka last year pulled up the registry for shifting the blame on court masters for non-compliance with the court's orders, calling it a 'very sorry state of affairs'.

The Supreme Court bench of Justice JK Maheshwari and Justice Sanjay Karol on May 6 sought an explanation from its Registrar (Judicial) against the listing of the case without following the proper procedure.

In a related issue regarding functioning of the Registry, another bench of the Court recently warned the Registry of serious consequences if errors were found in the future. In that case, a bench of Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra had found that the paper book of an SLP did not contain a previous order from August last year and lacked the necessary office reports.

Case no. – SLP (Crl.) No. 9374/2024 

Case Title – Zeeshan Haider v. Directorate of Enforcement

Click Here To Read/Download Order