Emphasising the need to follow a certain discipline and a reasonable timetable, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Thursday observed that the Bar and the litigants need to realise that every time courts give a posting for hearing their case, it is an appointment given to them that should be honoured and made use of.
Justice N. Seshasayee asked as to whether they would miss their appointment with their physician. It is time they realised courts are doctors of injured rights. When litigants do not miss a train, plane, social events, examination or interview, what makes them believe that their appointments with courts alone should figure least in their priorities.
The institution of courts are available for remedying a wrong done to the right for the justly aggrieved. The courts do not invite the litigants to its premises, but merely make a remedial forum available and keep their doors open to those who seek remedy. It is an invitation by appointment for those who have a reason to access the courts for justice, the judge said.
It is their choice. But, once approached they need to follow certain discipline and reasonable time table. Is it a problem of inadequate professionalism of the Bar or plain irresponsibility of the litigants or the unmindful generosity of courts that they themselves chose not to take the appointments that they have given the litigants seriously? the judge asked.
The courts may not be solely responsible for this, but it cannot seek an exemption either. With pain it has to be stated that for the sin of a section of the Bar and the litigants, courts are forced to carry the cross all alone, struggling to explain the delay for the disposal of cases to the citizens of the country all the time, the judge said.
Also, taking into account that procedural laws have its inherent elasticity and flexibility to accommodate multi various circumstances, the judge observed that courts cannot afford to assume a disciplinarian attitude and obstruct litigant’s aspiration for securing justice. Watch, weigh and value may be a reasonable approach for balancing justice in individual cases.
“May the Bar and the litigants be now told firmly, but not impolitely, that the appointment which the courts give them is as precious as an appointment a physician gives his patient, for the courts are doctors of bleeding rights”, the judge said while dismissing a civil revision petition of a litigant who had wasted considerable time of a civil court
The court was hearing the petition filed by Fathima of Madurai who challenged the order of the Principal District Munsif Court, Madurai. The court observed that the trial judge reasoned how the petitioner had abused the appointments. The attitude of the petitioner was plainly and painfully nonsensical and somewhere the game had to end, the court said.
