The Supreme Court last week summoned the Law Secretary of the Madhya Pradesh government to find out who is signing off on decisions to file appeals before it after delays of several hundreds of days. [State of Madhya Pradesh vs Gokulchand].A Bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan passed the direction while hearing an appeal filed by the State after a delay of 177 days, against an order of the High Court refusing to condone a delay of 656 days..Before summoning the Law Secretary, the top court has observed that it "admires the courage with which the State of Madhya Pradesh has been filing Special Leave Petitions in this Court over a period of time with delay of 300/400 days." It noted that the State was not able to assign any sufficient cause for this gross delay before the High Court, which had refused to condone the delay..The Bench noted that the easy way out would have been to "dismiss this petition solely on the ground of delay." However, it ordered,"...but we do not intend to do this as we have something else in our mind. We direct the Law Secretary of the State of Madhya Pradesh to remain present before us on 14-2-2025 along with the original files containing the decision taken to challenge the impugned order passed by the High Court declining to condone the delay of 656 days. We would like to know who is that authority who took the decision that the order passed by the High Court is worth challenging before this Court.".Additional Advocate General Nachiketa Joshi, Deputy Advocate General Bhupendra Pratap Singh and Advocates Sarad Kumar Singhania and Rashmi Singhania appeared for the State of Madhya Pradesh..[Read Order]
The Supreme Court last week summoned the Law Secretary of the Madhya Pradesh government to find out who is signing off on decisions to file appeals before it after delays of several hundreds of days. [State of Madhya Pradesh vs Gokulchand].A Bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan passed the direction while hearing an appeal filed by the State after a delay of 177 days, against an order of the High Court refusing to condone a delay of 656 days..Before summoning the Law Secretary, the top court has observed that it "admires the courage with which the State of Madhya Pradesh has been filing Special Leave Petitions in this Court over a period of time with delay of 300/400 days." It noted that the State was not able to assign any sufficient cause for this gross delay before the High Court, which had refused to condone the delay..The Bench noted that the easy way out would have been to "dismiss this petition solely on the ground of delay." However, it ordered,"...but we do not intend to do this as we have something else in our mind. We direct the Law Secretary of the State of Madhya Pradesh to remain present before us on 14-2-2025 along with the original files containing the decision taken to challenge the impugned order passed by the High Court declining to condone the delay of 656 days. We would like to know who is that authority who took the decision that the order passed by the High Court is worth challenging before this Court.".Additional Advocate General Nachiketa Joshi, Deputy Advocate General Bhupendra Pratap Singh and Advocates Sarad Kumar Singhania and Rashmi Singhania appeared for the State of Madhya Pradesh..[Read Order]
