Deprecating the conduct of litigants and advocates filing writ petitions seeking court direction to the authorities concerned without giving them reasonable time to look into issues, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court observed that the constitutional court had been woefully reduced to a below par performer as a result.
The trend had reached an alarming level that a representation was submitted to an authority for action and simultaneously a writ of mandamus was filed seeking a direction to dispose of the representation. Now, every official expected court direction for administrative functions, the court observed.
Justice V. Parthiban observed that the court unfortunately had been witnessing in the recent past a plethora of ‘mandamus’ writ petitions being filed at the drop of a hat for all kinds of relief, taking away the precious time of the court from focusing on quality litigation in true exercise of its constitutional jurisdiction.
The judge said this practice had reduced the court into a ‘direction factory’ or ‘machine’ producing stereotype orders/hackneyed directions which hardly required any application of mind. He said the pernicious and pandering trend must stop.
This trend had encouraged younger generation lawyers to resort to mandamus litigations through a contrived route as a fast track to achieve instant result for their brief at the cost of valuable court’s time, thereby depriving the litigants of actual relief deserved by them, the judge said.
The court observed that it was common knowledge that the authorities at various positions taking cue from the trend were by and large not inclined to discharge their official functions or responsibilities unless court directions were issued on almost all matters which should have been disposed of routinely by them.
The judge said it was high time that the courts did corrective judicial introspection and discourage attempts by the obsessive ‘direction seekers’ from plummeting the exalted jurisdiction of courts into a barren, pedestrian and stupefied judicial edifice.
The court was hearing the petition filed by G. Soundarrajan of Tiruchi seeking a direction to the Tiruchi District Registrar to look into his representation. The court dismissed the petition and observed that when the competent authority was looking into the issue, a reasonable time should be given to the authority.
