Supreme Court slams rich and powerful for wasting time of judiciary

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has hit out at the rich and powerful for trying to abuse the judicial process using money power.

The court rued that such elements use money power to waste the time of courts.

The court made the remarks while imposing Rs 25 lakh penalty each on three firms — Griesham GmbH (MGG), Goyal Gases Ltd (GGL) and the Ruias - for the loss of judicial time.

As per a report in the Deccan Chronicle, a bench of Justices J Chelameswar and AM Sapre said the money would be paid to the National Legal Services Authority and utilised for funding poor litigants in deserving cases.

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 ‘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.”

According to the report, the companies had filed suits on allotment of shares and trade agreements. They had filed appeals in the Supreme Court against each interim order passed by the Bombay High Court, which had led to a prolonged litigation.

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 that for the last 18 years, the litigation is going on.”

The bench added, “...We believe that it is only the parties who are to be blamed for the state of affairs. This case, in our view, is a classic example of the abuse of the judicial process by unscrupulous litigants with money power, all in the name of legal rights by resorting to half-truths, misleading representations and suppression of facts. Each and every party is guilty of one or the other of the above-mentioned misconducts.”