The Apex Court has said it is an irony that despite its repeated observations deprecating the practice of Govt authorities filing appeals before it belatedly to complete a mere formality, no action has ever been taken against officers who sit on file & do nothing.
The Supreme Court, which dismissed the petition filed by Deputy Conservator of Forests against the Bombay HC's Feb 2019 order on grounds of delay & imposed a cost of Rs 15,000 on the petitioner for wastage of judicial time, observed that it has repeatedly deprecated such a practice.
The irony is that despite observations, no action was ever taken against officers who sit on the file & do nothing, a bench headed by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul said.
The matter is further aggravated in the present case & even the present petition is filed with a delay of 462 days & once again the excuse is of change of counsel. We have repeatedly deprecated such attempts of the state governments to approach this court only to complete a mere formality, said the bench, also comprising Justice Dinesh Maheshwari & Justice Hrishikesh Roy.
The Supreme Court noted in its order that it has dealt with the issue of Govt authorities approaching Courts belatedly as if the statute of limitation does not exist for them.
The special leave petition has been filed after a delay of 462 days. This is one more case which we have categorized as a certificate cases' filed before this court to complete a mere formality & save the skin of officers who have been throughout negligent in defending a litigation! the Supreme Court said.
The Supreme Court, while referring to a Judgement passed by the Supreme Court in Oct 2020, said it had defined certificate cases the objective of which is only to put a quietus to the issue by recording that nothing could be done because the highest Court had dismissed the appeal.
We have repeatedly deprecated such practice & process, it said.
When the lawyer appearing for the petitioner contended that a valuable land is involved in the matter, the bench said, In our view, if it was so, then the officers responsible for the manner in defending this petition must be made to pay for it.
We are thus constrained to dismiss the petition as barred by time & impose cost of Rs 15,000 on the petitioner for wastage of judicial time. We put it to the counsel that the cost would have been much greater but for the fact that a young counsel is appearing before us & we have given considerable concession in the costs on that factor alone, the bench said.
It directed that cost be recovered from the officers responsible for delay in filing of plea in the Supreme Court.
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