The Supreme Court has issued a direction to the Registrar General of the Kerala High Court to upload a judgment in its official website within two weeks.
The Court passed this direction after being informed that the judgment of the division bench, though delivered on March 16, 2021, has not been uploaded yet.
A bench comprising Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and Aniruddha Bose passed this direction while considering a batch of special leave petitions filed against a judgment delivered by a single bench on December 12, 2020. The single bench had quashed an order of the National Green Tribunal which increased the minimum distance of quarries from residential areas to 200 metres from 50 metres.
Challenging the single bench direction, special leave petitions were filed in the Supreme Court. When the petitions were taken before the bench on June 29, Senior Advocate Gopal Shankaranarayanan, appearing for a respondent, submitted that the division bench of the High Court has passed a judgment in appeals filed against the single bench verdict.
On this, the Supreme Court bench told the petitioners’ lawyers that the petitions cannot be sustained without challenging the division bench judgment, as the single bench judgment has merged with it.
Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing in one of the petitions, then told the bench that division bench judgment has not been uploaded yet. Therefore, the petitioners are not in a position to challenge the same. Senior Advocate V Giri, appearing for another petitioner, backed the submissions of Rohatgi.
Taking note of this, the bench ordered:
“The Registrar of the High Court of Kerala shall look into this grievance and take necessary measures to upload the judgment and order of the Division Bench expeditiously, preferably within two weeks from today, so that hearing of these matters can proceed immediately thereafter”
The petitioners have been directed to carry out amendment of the petitions within a week of the receipt of the division bench judgment.