Supreme Court Reprimands Registry For Accepting Affidavit From Party Not Impleaded, Seeks Report On Its Working

The Supreme Court recently again expressed strong displeasure with its Registry's repeated procedural lapses. This time the Court criticized the registry officials for accepting a counter-affidavit from an individual who was not even impleaded as a party in the case.

The Court noted that the Registry is accepting documents from persons not even parties to the case without caveats and often in illegible form. Despite judicial orders highlighting non-compliance with Supreme Court Rules in SLP registrations, the Court said no corrective action appears to have been taken till date.

“This Court has time and again observed that the concerned Section/Branch of the Registry is accepting the documents/reply/counter from the party, who would not be a party – respondent in the proceedings nor would he have filed any caveat. Many a times, the documents would be accepted, though absolutely illegible and not even type written.”, the court noted.

“This Court has also time and again drawn the attention of the Registry with regard to the non-compliance of the Supreme Court Rules and other Rules of Procedures in respect of the registration of the SLPs by passing Judicial Orders, however there does not appear to be any follow-up exercise undertaken to rectify the lapses and discontinue the wrong practices followed by the Registry dehors the Supreme Court Rules.”, the court added.

Based on the aforementioned observation, the Court directed the Registrar (Judicial) “to submit the report and apprise the Court on the next date as to whether any follow-up action is taken on the Judicial Orders passed by the Court on the working of the Registry, and if yes, what actions have been taken so far.”

The matter is next listed on February 21, 2025.

Background

A bench of Justices Bela M Trivedi and Prasanna B Varale heard the criminal case where the Registry had accepted the counter-affidavit filed by the complainant, whose plea for impleadment in the case was still pending.

The Court had previously (on 14.11.2024) directed the Registry to explain how this was possible.

The Registry explained that the complainant's advocate had e-filed the impleadment application along with the counter-affidavit. The documents were registered and presented to the Court as per "practice," even though the impleadment had not been granted. The Registry admitted there were no specific rules covering this situation and apologized for the inconvenience.

Refusing to accept the plea that there was not rule covering the situation, the Court stated that since the proposed party was not impleaded in the case therefore the concerned Section/Branch of the Registry could not have accepted the said counter affidavit or the documents from the proposed party, and made such counter/documents part of the record

“When the applicant was not a party respondent in the SLP, he could not have filed either the counter affidavit or presented any documents along therewith. It is very unfortunate that the concerned Dealing Assistant has tried to justify the lapse quoting the practice prevailing in the Registry, and the concerned Branch Officer and the Assistant Registrar have simply put their signatures on such unacceptable justification.”, the Court said.

Case Title: HARMANPREET SINGH VERSUS STATE OF PUNJAB

Citation : 2025 LiveLaw (SC) 181

Click here to read/download the order