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The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Centre to address the issue of delay in disposal of cases pending in the sessions courts, where cases handled by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and those relating to Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act were also heard.
A Bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and A.K. Ganguly asked Additional Solicitor General Indira Jaising to address the issue on February 14 taking note of the fact that charges were yet to be framed even after four years in the forgery cases relating to the Amar Singh telephone tapping incident.
Earlier, Solicitor-General Gopal Subramaniam informed the Bench that the sessions court had a pendency of 1,522 cases and it was also handling 146 CBI and other NDPS cases and this was the reason for the delay of four years.
Mr. Justice Singhvi cited the instance of a case from Gujarat involving corruption to the tune of between Rs. 100 crore and Rs. 1,000 crore and said it had taken about seven years for investigation to be completed. He said: “We go on giving lectures and sermons for expeditious disposal of cases but there are no solutions to the problem. We may issue a mandamus for speedy disposal of cases if that is the only solution.”
The judge, however, lamented that the present case (Mr. Amar Singh's writ petition filed in 2006) had been pending in the Supreme Court for four years. He said: “Adjournment has become a cancer to the institution. Let us have introspection before giving sermons to others.”
Mr. Justice Ganguly observed: “My personal opinion is that no government wants a strong judiciary. See the allocation made in the budget for the judiciary, which is less than 0.7 per cent. This is the commitment towards the judiciary.”
When the SG said that service provider Reliance Infocomm had tapped the telephone of Mr. Singh on the basis of forged letters, Mr. Justice Ganguly said: “The service provider ought to know that when the authorisation letter is not in order, it should have drawn the attention of the joint commissioner.”
He said: “Either the service provider was doing [it] deliberately or because of its incompetence on the basis of a letter full of errors. The government should have cancelled the licence of the service provider per se.”
Mr. Justice Singhvi said: “If this is so, anybody's communication can be intercepted by the unscrupulous service provider. It is an extremely dangerous situation which is happening. Can you see where things have gone? It has sunk so low. The government doesn't seem to have taken action in a serious matter.”
The Bench posted the matter for further hearing on February 14.
A Bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and A.K. Ganguly asked Additional Solicitor General Indira Jaising to address the issue on February 14 taking note of the fact that charges were yet to be framed even after four years in the forgery cases relating to the Amar Singh telephone tapping incident.
Earlier, Solicitor-General Gopal Subramaniam informed the Bench that the sessions court had a pendency of 1,522 cases and it was also handling 146 CBI and other NDPS cases and this was the reason for the delay of four years.
Mr. Justice Singhvi cited the instance of a case from Gujarat involving corruption to the tune of between Rs. 100 crore and Rs. 1,000 crore and said it had taken about seven years for investigation to be completed. He said: “We go on giving lectures and sermons for expeditious disposal of cases but there are no solutions to the problem. We may issue a mandamus for speedy disposal of cases if that is the only solution.”
The judge, however, lamented that the present case (Mr. Amar Singh's writ petition filed in 2006) had been pending in the Supreme Court for four years. He said: “Adjournment has become a cancer to the institution. Let us have introspection before giving sermons to others.”
Mr. Justice Ganguly observed: “My personal opinion is that no government wants a strong judiciary. See the allocation made in the budget for the judiciary, which is less than 0.7 per cent. This is the commitment towards the judiciary.”
When the SG said that service provider Reliance Infocomm had tapped the telephone of Mr. Singh on the basis of forged letters, Mr. Justice Ganguly said: “The service provider ought to know that when the authorisation letter is not in order, it should have drawn the attention of the joint commissioner.”
He said: “Either the service provider was doing [it] deliberately or because of its incompetence on the basis of a letter full of errors. The government should have cancelled the licence of the service provider per se.”
Mr. Justice Singhvi said: “If this is so, anybody's communication can be intercepted by the unscrupulous service provider. It is an extremely dangerous situation which is happening. Can you see where things have gone? It has sunk so low. The government doesn't seem to have taken action in a serious matter.”
The Bench posted the matter for further hearing on February 14.