[Exclusive]: Supreme Court Registry rebuked (again) by sitting judge

Rumours about the Registry of the Supreme Court, or rather the manner in which it functions, abound. And, on occasion, judges too indicate the need for a more thorough examination of the Registry..It was not too long ago that Justice Ranjan Gogoi had taken strong objection to the listing of a particular matter by the Supreme Court Registry. Yesterday, Justice Arun Mishra also came down strongly upon the Registry remarking that “this is not the way the Supreme Court” should function..The case in question dates back to 2008, listed before a Bench of Justices V Gopala Gowda and Arun Mishra. During an earlier hearing, it was noticed that certain documents were not on record despite the same being received by the Registry from the courts below. Hence, the court passed an order to submit the same and listed the matter for yesterday..The order reads,.“During the course of the submission, it was brought to our notice that some of the important documents, marked in the evidence before the trial court/sessions court, are not available on record. Since it appears from the records that original records from the trial court as well as the High Court have been received and the fact that some of the important documents are missing, the Registry is directed to verify from the original records and submit a report thereof by tomorrow as to whether the Registry has received the record from the trial court and the High Court containing all the exhibits marked in the cases.”.When the matter was taken up yesterday, the documents were on record. Justice Arun Mishra then went on to remark that,.“Something is wrong. This is not the way Supreme Court should function. We knew that the original records were there in the Registry but purposefully not brought to court. That is why we directed the Registry to produce it.”.This is not the first time that a sitting judge has raised questions about the court’s own Registry..Last year, Justice Ranjan Gogoi had also made some strong observations against the Registry for what he considered “unacceptable listing” of a case involving builder giant DLF. He had said the following:.“My brother judge just told me what has been happening in this matter. This is just not acceptable. When people are rotting in jail for years, you don’t expect us to take up this 2014 matter. How is a regular civil appeal listed as after notice case?….“We must know how our Registry is functioning. We have an issue with our Registry. We have asked the officer [from the Registry] to come and explain. We can only clean our house.”.Sometime last year, there were allegations of a particular corporate entity trying to get its matter listed before a particular judge though nothing could be proved. In 2014, Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave had also alleged Bench hunting stating in open court that “court no. 10 is a preferred for builders from Bombay”. He did not single out the Registry though.