The Gujarat High Court on Thursday took to task a practicing advocate after he filed a public interest litigation (PIL) questioning the case management system of the court. A visibly angry bench of Acting Chief Justice AS Dave and Justice Biren Vaishnav also imposed a cost of Rs 10,000 on the lawyer for filing the petition based on 'wild averments', while making serious remarks on his conduct.

Advocate Girish Das filed the petition alleging that the high court's case management system was "improper" as a result of which hundreds of cases are listed before a bench that hears criminal cases pertaining to the cancellation and registration of FIRs. He has submitted that due to high burden of cases on this court, lawyers are made to wait up to 8.30 pm, although the court hours are between 11 am and 5 pm. He argued that cases seeking police protection are of utmost important, but due to the faulty system, litigants are made to wait for months.

Meanwhile, when the Das's PIL was taken up for hearing on Thursday, Justice Dave remarked, "As a practicing lawyer, can you tell us how many leave notes and sick notes have you filed and how many cases could not be taken up due to want of your appearance? How can you say that the case management system is faulty? Do you have any data and are you even aware on how many cases are disposed off by judges on a daily basis?"

The court, reprimanded Das for making wild allegations, without having any idea of facts and figures. It pointed out that Das should be aware of the fact that he has been already penalised Rs 10,000 in another case, which he is yet to pay. The court also said Das should consider himself lucky that the bar council has not initiated any action against him. The single-judge bench of Justice Bela Trivedi had imposed a cost of Rs 10,000 on Das on February 23 for his incompetency to argue a case and for lack of etiquettes.

Justice Dave, while dismissing Das's PIL, remarked that it is devoid of any merit and imposed a cost of Rs 10,000 for making wild averments. The court also said if Das fails to pay the Rs 10,000 fine imposed by the single-judge bench, a further cost of Rs 10,000 will be imposed on him.