Apex court chides advocates

New Delhi: The Supreme Court chided advocates for seeking adjournments on flimsy grounds like traffic jams, as such an attitude only compounded the woes of people caught in endless litigations. "What traffic jams? Let there be rains, sunshine or even an earthquake. You are supposed to be in the court by 10.30 am. You cannot seek adjournments," a two-judge bench of Justices Markandeya Katju and V S Sirpurkar observed. The bench was irked after a junior counsel in a criminal case sought adjournment on the ground that his senior could not make it to the court as he was caught in a "traffic jam." The apex court regretted that advocates were coming up with such excuses to seek adjournments resulting in considerable delay in disposal of cases. "This is not a high school where the student comes before the headmaster with a lame excuse that he is late to the school because his cycle got punctured. When you know there is a traffic jam in Delhi why don't you start early. Even we judges do it," the bench said. It later dismissed the case for "default" as the senior failed to appear even after the matter was called for adjudication the third time. A junior advocate also faced the bench's ire after she failed to give proper replies to the court on a matter relating to a service dispute. "If you have not read the file (case) don't appear before us. Stop appearing in the Supreme Court from tomorrow if you don't read the files," the bench said. Though the lady counsel apologised, senior counsel and constitutional expert Rajeev Dhawan who was present in the court objected to the bench's remark. He said the apex court cannot prevent an advocate from appearing. The senior counsel felt that the advocate could have been summoned to the chambers and gently told about her duties. But Justice Katju refused to entertain any argument on the issue and remarked "I am like that. Take it........or leave it," he said as he proceeded with the next case.

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