After Chief Justice Gogoi's Appeal, Judge Says No To Seminar In Trinidad

Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi says he has a plan to tackle pendency of cases.

Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi's plan to reduce the pendency in the Supreme Court appears to have kicked into action. As a result of the Chief Justice of India's appeal to judges not to skip working days to attend seminars, a senior Supreme Court judge has declined an invitation to attend a conference in Trinidad and Tobago.

Justice NV Ramana turned down the invitation for a conference which is being organised by the Commonwealth Judicial Education Institution in Port of Spain from November 15 to November 18.

Justice Ramana is the first Supreme Court judge to cancel a visit following the Chief Justice's advice.

A few days after taking over as the Chief Justice of India on October 3, Justice Gogoi held a video conference with the chief justices of the various high courts and suggested measures to overcome the pendency of cases.

He appealed to judges not to take leave unless there is an emergency and urged them not to attend seminars on working days.

During the video conference, he reportedly asked judges not to avail of Leave Travel Concession during working days in order to deal with the backlog of cases in the judiciary.

Another measure that Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi took is to abolish urgent mentioning in the top court except in cases involving hanging and demolition. He said that certain parameters have to be fixed for urgent mentioning.

He had also said he is working out a system under which once a petition is filed it would be listed within a couple of days.

Justice Gogoi is scheduled to remain the Chief Justice of India for the next 13 months till his retirement on November 17, 2019. Even before he took over, he had said that he has a plan to deal with the pendency of cases which, according to him has been bringing a lot of "disrepute" to the judicial system.

With inputs from PTI