Frivolous cases making SC dysfunctional: Justice DY Chandrachud

Satya Prakash
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, June 1

Frivolous cases were consuming most of its time, making it “dysfunctional” by causing inordinate delays in hearing of cases of national importance, the Supreme Court said on Tuesday.

“We as an institution must not spend our time dealing with frivolous matters. This wastes the time of the court and suggests that we have a lot of time. Serious matters must be given time,” a Bench headed by Justice DY Chandrachud said while hearing a consumer dispute.

As on May 1 this year, 67,898 cases were pending in the Supreme Court. Out of 67,898 pending matters, 12,945 matters are such which can’t be listed for ‘hearing’ as they are either ‘Incomplete Miscellaneous Matters’ or ‘Not Ready Regular Hearing’ matters.

The Bench got irked to see an application in a matter that had already been disposed of.

“We cannot pass another order in an already disposed of matter. We shouldn’t be hearing you. Actually, this is how the Supreme Court is becoming dysfunctional. Judges have to spend their important time going through these files before the start of the day,” commented Justice Chandrachud.

“These matters waste important time of the court, which could have been spent on serious matters, pan-India matters,” the Bench said, dismissing the application.

“Today, when we were going through listed cases, we found that 95 per cent of the cases are frivolous. Yesterday, I had to finalise the order in the suo motu matter on Covid management, which is a matter of national importance but could not upload it because I had to go through the files listed for today,” Justice Chandrachud said, adding, “Judges should be able to spend time on matters of national importance, which are serious matters.”