Supreme Court asks litigant to pay ₹25,000 fine for 60-page synopsis in appeal against 5-page order

The Supreme Court recently imposed costs of ₹25,000 on a litigant for seeking permission to file a 60-page synopsis to challenge a 5-page order denying him anticipatory bail. [Sandeep Kumar Garg vs State of Uttar Pradesh and anr].Such lengthy pleadings are uncalled for, observed a bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Pankaj Mithal in its September 27 order.The Court, therefore, refused to give the permission sought and instead asked the litigant to pay ₹25,000 as a donation to a charitable organisation.Notably, the Supreme Court initially wanted to impose the costs on the concerned advocate-on-record, but desisted after the counsel submitted that this would set a wrong precedent.The pleadings were drafted in accordance with the accused-appellant's express instructions, the counsel added.."There is an application filed by the petitioner for seeking permission to file a lengthy synopsis and list of dates. The impugned order runs into 5 pages. However, the synopsis is of more than 60 pages which was uncalled for in the facts of the case. Therefore, we reject the application and while we do so, we direct the petitioner to pay costs of ₹25,000 by way of a donation to any institution carrying out charitable work," the Court directed..The Court, however, issued notice in the main case which was an appeal challenging the High Court's denial of anticipatory bail to the litigant. The litigant was an accused in a forgery case. On July 17 this year, the Allahabad High Court rejected his anticipatory bail application prompting the accused to move the Supreme Court for relief. .The Supreme Court granted the accused-appellant interim anticipatory bail on medical grounds subject to the condition that he cooperates with the investigation. .The Uttar Pradesh government was also directed to get the accused examined in a government hospital to ascertain his medical condition and fitness. The case is likely be heard next on November 6..Senior Advocates Sidharth Luthra and Siddharth Agarwal with advocates Pai Amit, Shantanu Singh, Ravi Sehgal, Tathagata Dutta, Akshat Kumar, Rudrali Patil, Komal Mundhra and Divya Narayan represented the appellant, one Sandeep Kumar Garg.Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal with advocates Pratibha Jain, Puneet Jain, Christi Jain, Harsh Jain, Yogit Kamat, Shruti Singh, Mann Arora, and Akriti Sharma represented a private respondent..On a related note, the same bench of the Supreme Court had in August this year, stated that parties should avoid filing bulky synopses. The bench had observed that pleadings before the Court should not be voluminous, particularly when orders and pleadings from the courts below were brief.In that case, the judges had observed, "We must record here that the plaint runs into 10 pages, the order of the trial court runs into 10 pages and the order of the High Court has 6 pages. However, there are more than 60 pages of synopsis and 27 pages of the SLP. Such a bulky synopsis ought to be avoided.".Avoid bulky synopses, says Supreme Court after 60-page synopsis filed in appeal against 6-page HC order.[Read order]