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Gujarat High Court Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal on Thursday pulled up the state government for casual filing of appeals and chastised it for misuse of public money. The court has now directed Gujarat Chief Secretary Raj Kumar to streamline the procedure for filing appeals by framing guidelines to this effect.
The direction came while a division bench comprising Chief Justice Agarwal and Justice Aniruddha Mayee was dealing with an appeal filed by the state with an “inordinate delay of 487 days”, challenging an order by a single judge in a matter related to the conversion of a land parcel from new to old tenure. Dismissing the appeal to be misconceived, looking into the delay as well as on merits, the court expressed its displeasure at the state’s appeal.
Issuing directions to Kumar, the court went on to record in its order, “We are amazed to see the manner in which intra-court appeals are being filed by the state authorities. It seems that proper opinions of the government counsels are not sought on the merits of the case before taking decision to institute the intra-court appeals. Even the delayed appeals are being filed regularly and the delay as sought to be explained therein, is casual administrative delay in seeking permission to institute the appeal.”
“We therefore call upon the chief secretary of Gujarat government to look into the matter and to streamline the procedure for filing of intra court appeals by framing guidelines dealing with the mode and manner of filing such appeals, to the effect that, such appeals can be filed only after taking proper opinion of the government pleaders and that too within the timeframe prescribed for the purpose,” the court further added.
To this effect, the court noted, “The timeline to challenge the decision of the learned single judge (decision) shall be laid down by preparing the blueprint for institution of appeals so as to ensure that the interest of the state is not hampered because of the lackadaisical approach of the officers and as also that no appeal is filed in the court in a casual manner which would result in adding to the humongous litigation which this court is facing on a daily basis and further may not incur and wastage of public money.”
The bench directed Kumar to “ensure strict compliance of this order” and to submit a report before the court within four weeks through the registrar-general of the high court.
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