“We can only clean our house”, Justice Gogoi pulls up SC Registry for “unacceptable” listing of DLF’s case

Is something rotten in the State of Denmark? The hubbub surrounding allegedly biased listing of CIDCO matter last year has hardly died down when a similar controversy has raised its head again. This time Builder giant DLF and the Supreme Court Registry are in the thick of things; and interestingly the objection has been raised by none other than the presiding judge before whom the matter was listed for the first time today – Justice Ranjan Gogoi..If what transpired in Court room 7 of the Supreme Court today afternoon is anything to go by, Justice Gogoi is deeply upset with the Supreme Court Registry for what he termed as “unacceptable” listing of a civil appeal involving DLF..The case pertains to a 630 crore penalty imposed by Competition Commission of India (CCI) on DLF for abuse of dominant position in Gurgaon Real Estate market. DLF had appealed to the Competition Appellate Tribunal which had upheld the CCI order. DLF had then moved the Supreme Court which had, in the interim, asked to deposit the penalty amount with the Supreme Court Registry. DLF had deposited 375 crore with the Registry in instalments while the hearing in the case was progressing..The matter was listed as item 11 today for final hearing. When the hearing commenced, Justice Gogoi and Justice Ramana, who were the judges on the Bench, were seen talking to each other. Subsequently, when Senior Advocate Aryama Sundaram, appearing for DLF, sought to commence his arguments, Justice Gogoi expressed his dissatisfaction at the early listing of the case..“My brother judge just told me what has been happening in this matter. This is just not acceptable. When people are rotting in jail for years, you don’t expect us to take up this 2014 matter. How is a regular civil appeal listed as after notice case?”.Aryama Sundaram then said that DLF had no role in this and requested the Court not to make any adverse observations..“We have nothing to do with this. Please don’t make adverse observations. This is a widely watched case.”.Justice Gogoi, who is on track to becoming the country’s Chief Justice, then said that,.“We must know how our Registry is functioning. We have an issue with our Registry. We have asked the officer [from the Registry] to come and explain. We can only clean our house.”.He then said that the matter will not be heard till the issue is sorted out; instead it will be listed as regular hearing matter at the bottom of the list..This new controversy comes close on the heels of the tiff that prevailed between the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) and the Chief Justice regarding listing of admitted matters without sufficient prior notice. The matter was resolved to an extent but not before it caused some tension between the SCBA and the Chief Justice..Image taken from here.