The Supreme Court has taken as serious note of some officials of the state governments involving in a “racket” of delaying the filing of appeals in high-stake commercial cases and let private industries and contractors getting away with huge financial benefits by winning the case in trial courts without it being examined on merits by the high courts or the SC.
Since the state governments were suffering huge financial losses due to the racket, a bench of Justices Markandey Katju and T.S. Thakur in an important order directed the chief secretaries of all the states to put immediate end to it illegal action and take strict action against such officials “suppressing” case files with an intention to cause delay in filing of the appeals.
“This racket has been going on for a long time not only before the Supreme Court but also before the high courts. Now the time has come that this racket should come to an end and the officials responsible for this be given severe punishment,” the top court said.
While deciding to monitor the matter or some time, the top court appointed Solicitor-General Gopal Subramaniam as amicus curiae to assist it in unearthing the nexus between the officials and private parties.
“It is high time that this mal-practice be severely rooted out and an effectual mechanism be adopted all over the country so that such delays do not occur in future,” the bench said, directing the Supreme Court registry to send the copies of the order to all the chief secretaries to ensure that they take urgent and “effective” steps in this regard.
“We feel that the beneficiary of the judgements (not challenged in time) may be hand in glove with the officials in the government departments who deal with the files, and files are ‘suppressed’ for a long period and then the appeal before the high court or Supreme Court is filed after a long delay to get it dismissed on the ground of limitation,” the top court in its order recorded.