CJI asks lawyers to mention cases for urgent hearing before SC Registrar instead of first court

Taking a cue from his predecessor Justice (retired) Ranjan Gogoi, CJI S A Bobde on Thursday asked lawyers to mention cases for urgent listing and hearing before the Registrar, rather than requesting the first court to entertain such pleas. Justice Bobde, who succeeded Justice Gogoi on November 18 as the 47th CJI, has so far been lenient with mentioning of cases for urgent hearing by lawyers at the start of day's proceedings at 10.30 AM.

Lawyers usually mention their cases for urgent listing and hearing before the first court of the Supreme Court, presided over by the CJI. On Thursday, when senior lawyer Kapil Sibal mentioned a 30-year-old corporate litigation for urgent hearing, the bench headed by the CJI asked him to make a request before the Registrar Judicial of the apex court.

"We are trying to curtail this mentioning time before us," said the bench, that also comprised justices S A Nazeer and Sanjiv Khanna. The bench then asked lawyers, standing in a long queue in the CJI's courtroom for mentioning their cases for urgent hearing, to approach the registry.

Justice Bobde will have a tenure of over 17 months as the CJI and is due to retire on April 23, 2021. Former CJI Justice Gogoi had made it clear to the lawyers that no mentioning of matters for urgent hearing would be entertained unless the case was of extreme importance, such as execution of death penalty.

Justice Gogoi, since retired, had then attempted to streamline the system to ensure expeditious listing of cases for hearing before the courts so that lawyers are not compelled to mention them.

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