How the practice of Mentioning has evolved under various CJIs

Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra today made a significant decision by barring Senior Advocates from mentioning matters for early listing.

Misra J stated in open court that only Advocates-on-Record will be allowed to mention matters henceforth.

This, after a lawyer yesterday objected to the haphazard manner in which mentioning was happening in the CJI’s court, with Senior Advocates mentioning more than one matter.

There is an interesting history behind regulating the practice of mentioning in Supreme Court. While certain CJIs had strictly enforced a bar on Senior Advocates mentioning matters, some of them were lax in implementing the same.

A Senior Advocate gave an account of the evolution of the practice of mentioning in the Supreme Court.

“It was Chief Justice MN Venkatachaliah who started the practice of barring Senior Advocates from mentioning. 

Many juniors including me benefited immensely from it. We got the opportunity to mention important matters.”

The tradition continued during the tenure of Chief Justice AM Ahmadi. The lawyer narrates an incident from back then:

“A lawyer was mentioning a matter. However, an ASG who was actually involved in the matter also accompanied the lawyer since it was an important case. The lawyer mentioned the matter. However, the ASG could not contain himself and rose and made an argument. 

Justice Ahmadi responded by saying that ‘I was going to allow the mentioning, but since you spoke, I am disallowing it’.”

So, CJIs stuck to the practice of not allowing Seniors from mentioning. However, the practice was diluted over the years. The senior lawyer continues,

“It was really diluted during the tenure of late CJI Kabir. Subsequently, CJI Dattu successfully regulated it by introducing a queue system and allowing only one mentioning for one lawyer.”

Even before CJI Dattu, it was during the tenure of CJI RM Lodha that guidelines were issued for the oral mentioning of cases. According to these guidelines, the Deputy Registrar (Mentioning) would first process the request of mentioning.

During CJI Dattu’s tenure, the Supreme Court Bar Association had come up with suggestions to disallow unlisted, out of turn mentioning by Senior Advocates in fresh matters. It had also suggested that mentioning in pending matters be made only before the Bench hearing the matter and fresh unlisted mentioning be placed before the first Five Benches of the Court.

Subsequently, CJI TS Thakur had also made an emotional speech about the overwhelming pendency of cases in the higher judiciary. Judging by how Mondays and Fridays went during his tenure, mentioning took up a significant chunk of the court’s time.

Which is not to say CJI Thakur had not tried to stem the flow. During a hearing, he had stopped oral mentioning midway while expressing his displeasure in strong words,

“It think we should stop. You take up one hour of our time”.

It is a known fact that mentioning is used by many Senior Advocates to secure early hearing for cases which they project as “urgent”. This often leads to unpleasant allegations against the Bench, especially when such mentioning is made in commercial matters involving corporate giants.

And now, with this new development ushered in by CJI Misra, it remains to be seen whether things will change. Whether further steps need to be taken to regulate mentioning is the moot question.