Madras High Court lawyers object to Justice G Jayachandran listing 1,250 FIR quashing pleas on a single day

Lawyers of the Madras High Court have objected to the listing of 1,250 petitions filed under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) seeking quashing of first information reports (FIRs) before Justice G Jayachandran on a single day..The Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry has said that lawyers are anxious as they fear that “mass hearing” of their petitions might lead to a “miscarriage of justice.”.Justice Jayachandran took over the portfolio of cases pertaining to Members of Parliament and Legislative Assemblies (MPs and MLAs) on October 3 this year, after a new roster was notified by the High Court Registry. His predecessor holding such portfolio, Justice N Anand Venkatesh, was transferred to the Madurai bench..On Wednesday, Justice Jayachandran’s courtroom notified three different lists of matters in the day’s causelist. The first list had 97-odd matters consisting of criminal original petitions and writ petitions that were heard. The second list had 23 connected election petitions and applications.The third list, which was taken up after the lunch hour, had 1,250 criminal original petitions pertaining to quashing of FIRs filed between 2022 and 2023. None of these matters were connected to each other..A large crowd of lawyers had gathered in the courtroom ahead of the third list being taken up.Bar Council members RC Paul Kanagaraj and K Balu made a mention on behalf of the Bar, and urged the Court to look at each matter individually, as and when they came up for hearing.Justice Jayachandran said that lawyers need not crowd up the court hall, as he was going to examine each matter one by one and hear all parties concerned..The judge further said that he had undertaken such exercise to test which of the 1,250 matters fit within the parameters set by the Supreme Court’s judgment in the case of Neeharika Infrastructure. In that case, the apex court had cautioned High Courts against passing interim orders in an indiscriminate manner restraining the police from taking coercive action.“Nearly two lakh FIRs were pending before the police stations across the State. In many cases, investigation has not progressed just because of the pending petitions to quash the FIRs. Even if there is no stay, the policemen cite the pending FIR quash petition number and keep the FIRs pending for years together,” Justice Jayachandran said..The judge also asked the lawyers appearing in the said 1,250 petitions to withdraw their cases if they felt that they did not fall within the parameters of the Neeharika judgement, adding that the Court will impose costs on petitions it finds frivolous..Later that evening, however, the Court issued a notification directing the Registry to list all the 1,250 matters together on October 18.This led to much anxiety among the lawyers again, with messages being circulated on WhatsApp groups expressing an apprehension of their cases not being heard in a just manner.“Dear friends, even after we were represented in the midst of unprecedented huge crowd of Advocates before G.Jayachandran J Court at 2.15 at Court Hall 46 that the grievance of the Bar regarding mass disposal of 482 direction petitions in line with Neeharika judgment which in large scale may lead to miscarriage of Justice it is listed as en mass of 1250 cases on 18.10.2023,” one such message read..Advocate Jim Raj Milton, who has three of his matters listed among the said 1,250 matters, said that the concerns raised by the lawyers were two-fold.“One is about the administrative arrangement - a judge can at maximum handle 100 matters every day. And here, 1,200 odd matters are being listed. So, we do not know what is going on. Secondly, there is a presumption by the judge currently holding this portfolio that the previous judge might not have considered the parameters while passing or not passing the interim orders on these matters,” Milton said.He added that none of the 1,250 matters were connected to each other in any way. While interim orders had been passed in some of the cases, such orders were yet to be passed in others..Milton had secured an interim stay in one of the three unconnected matters that have found a place on the list. “It was a civil matter and the previous judge (Justice Venkatesh) had passed an interim order on September 25 in accordance with the Bhajanlal judgement and asked the matter to be listed after six weeks. However, suddenly after 10 days, I found my matter listed again,” he said..The lawyers said that while nothing stopped a judge from testing whether each of the matters came within the parameters laid down in the Neeharika judgment, the same can be done as when each matter comes up for further hearing.“The judge can test, reverse or, uphold the interim orders. There is no issue at all. There is no urgency, however, to test it in every matter together right now,” a lawyer said..[Read Causelist Notification]