Delivering the Foundation Day address on the Supreme Court’s 75th year of establishment on January 28, the CJI highlighted four issues within the judiciary that will have to be addressed through “difficult conversations”.
These were “adjournment culture” among lawyers, limiting the length of oral arguments, the length of court vacations, and providing a level playing field for first-generation lawyers from diverse backgrounds. What is the state of things on these four counts, and how have they been addressed in the past? We explain.
1. What “adjournment culture” is; its effect on justice delivery
This address was far from the first time a Supreme Court judge has singled out the practice of lawyers asking for repeated adjournments as a cause for concern. In a 2016 judgment (Gayathri v. M. Girish), Justice Dipak Misra detailed a lawyer’s endeavour to “master the art of adjournment” as he had successfully gotten a case adjourned 15 times at the trial court. He described the effect on the case, stating “The proceedings in the suit got arrested as if “time” had been arrested.”
An adjournment refers to the court practice of delaying a scheduled hearing to a later date. Order XVII of the Civil Procedure Code, 1908 provides rules for courts to follow when faced with adjournment requests. Among other rules, it states that courts shall not grant an adjournment to a party more than three times during the hearing of a suit, that sufficient cause must be shown and that the circumstances are beyond the control of the party.
While adjournments are often necessary, the delay caused has a cascading effect of increasing the number of pending cases. The 239th Law Commission Report (2012) listed causes for delay in criminal cases at the trial court stage. It stated, “The heavy workload in the courts is
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