Supreme Court laments "sorry state of affairs" in its Registry after misplacement of documents

The Supreme Court recently lamented the sorry state of affairs at the apex court registry and directed the Registrar (Judicial Listing) to ensure that there is no delay in drawing decrees in terms of court orders..However, a bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan took note of the regret expressed by the concerned staff and stopped short of taking action against them..The registry had failed to draw up a divorce decree in terms of the Court's order passed in September, which resulted in the closure of as many as ten cases between the parties.The Court then asked the registry to furnish a report as to why there was no decree drawn even after five months of the order. When the response came, the Court said,"The Registrar (Judicial Listing) has submitted a report along with the explanation by various staff members. If all the reports are read together, it shows the sorry state of affairs."As per the report, the staff said that it had misplaced the original terms of settlement. Taking a dim view of this, the Bench said,"We fail to understand how the registry can refuse to draw the decree on the ground that the original settlement terms were not available. When there is an order of the Court to draw a decree in a particular manner, it was the duty of the registry to do so. Another excuse was invented that the court master had not forwarded the original settlement terms. The report shows that even the said excuse was totally incorrect, as the settlement terms were forwarded by the court master which were misplaced due to no fault of the court master of this Court.".The Court went on to say that it passes a large number of orders in exercise of its powers under Article 142 of the Constitution of India to put an end to the matrimonial disputes. The registry is expected to be prompt and draw decrees in such cases at the earliest, the Bench said."The registry has to note that unless the decree is made available, the order of this Court is of no use to the parties. All of us who are part of the justice delivery system must remember that we exist for the benefit of the litigants," the order stated..[Read Order]