Supreme Court: Judicial process abused with money

The Supreme Court has expressed serious concern that the rich and unscrupulous elements with money power abuse the judicial process and waste the precious time of the courts through prolonged litigation.

A bench of Justices J. Chelameswar and A.M. Sapre slapped Rs 25 lakhs as exemplary costs on three companies, to be paid by each of the three parties i.e. Messer Griesham GmbH (MGG), Goyal Gases Ltd. (GGL) and Ruias.

The said amount is to be paid to National Legal Services Authority as compensation for the loss of judicial time of this country and the same may be utilised by the National Legal Services Authority to fund poor litigants to pursue their claims before this court in deserving cases.

Writing the judgment Justice Chelameswar said, “This case should also serve as proof of the abuse of the discretionary jurisdiction of this court under Article 136 of the Constitution by the rich and powerful in the name of a ‘fight for justice’ at each and every interlocutory step of a suit. Enormous amount of judicial time of this court and two high courts was spent on this litigation. Most of it is avoidable and could have been well spent on more deserving cases.” The bench said “The examination of various questions raised by the petitioners in these special leave petitions, in our opinion, is wholly uncalled for. The net effect of all the litigation is this that for the last 18 years, the litigation is going on. Considerable judicial time of this country is spent on this litigation. The conduct of none of the parties to this litigation is wholesome. Arguments were advanced on either side for a period of about 18 working days as if this court were a court of original jurisdiction trying the various suits.”