The Delhi High Court Bar Association has shown its solidarity towards the bench, even as a sitting judge of the High Court received some rather unflattering media attention..An article published by Times of India two days ago reported that a disgruntled litigant had written a letter to Chief Justice of India TS Thakur complaining about the alleged “tardy disposal of cases” by Justice Gita Mittal..The complainant, who claims to be a litigant suffering as a result of Justice Mittal’s alleged slow disposal, has added in the letter a number of facts and figures supporting his claim. These include a complete list of disposals by the judge in January and February along with the total number of pages dictated as orders/judgments during this period, as retrieved from the Delhi High Court website..The letter also alleges that Justice Mittal sits for less than an hour every day, and urges CJI Thakur to intervene and ensure that she sits in court for the full duration of five hours..However, the Bar Association has jumped to the defence of the judge, in a resolution passed yesterday. It noted that the complainant has failed to take into account the fact that Justice Mittal is presently dealing with appeals arising from matrimonial disputes, which,. “…requires the bench to invest a lot of time and effort in chambers, persuading very acuminous and hostile couples to end their disputes by reaching an out of court settlement. It is a time consuming, mentally exhausting and an arduous task, which the Bench performs…”.The resolution goes on to state,.“…to criticize an Hon’ble judge on the basis of mere statistics, is to say the least, unfair and unwarranted…such allegations made with callous disregard to the truth, if published, erode the credibility of the institution (of which both the Bench and the Bar are inalienable parts) in the perception of the public at large.”.The Bar Association has condemned TOI for publishing an article with “false and misleading” content. It aims to bring the resolution to the notice of CJI Thakur and demands that the resolution be published by the media outlet..Read the resolution:
