‘Date After Date’ Will No Longer Be Tolerated; Supreme Court Issues Strict Directives
Strict Rules Imposed on Adjournment of Hearings; Permission to be Granted Only in Exceptional Circumstances
New Delhi: To prevent delays in the hearing of cases, the Supreme Court has taken strict measures, declaring that the practice of granting ‘date after date’ (repeated adjournments) will no longer be tolerated. The Court has clarified that requests to adjourn a hearing will be considered only in exceptional circumstances and subject to specific rules. In this regard, the Supreme Court has issued a circular.
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A letter requesting the adjournment of a hearing may be submitted by the ‘Advocate-on-Record’ or by the litigants themselves. It is mandatory to serve this request letter to the opposing party or the Caveator in advance. A copy of such a request, along with an acknowledgment of receipt, must be submitted before 11:00 AM on the working day immediately preceding the scheduled hearing. The opposing party may raise objections to such a request. These objections must be sent via email before 12:00 PM on the preceding day and will be placed before the Court. The adjournment application must clearly state the reasons for the request and explicitly mention how many times the case has been adjourned thus far.
Exceptional Circumstances
Henceforth, adjournments will be granted only in cases involving the death of a family member, the illness of the lawyer or the litigant, or any other extremely compelling reason that satisfies the Court. In new cases, a request for adjournment may be made only once. Furthermore, the circular states that an adjournment will not be granted consecutively twice without the matter actually coming up for hearing before the Court. Most importantly, no letter seeking an adjournment will be accepted for cases that are listed for regular hearing before the Court.
