Civil suits issue: SC seeks details from Delhi HC

The Supreme Court today asked the Delhi High Court to furnish information pertaining to civil suits pending there, including the number of joint registrars or commissioners recording evidence in such cases.
The apex court, which has initiated a petition on its own for having a mechanism to deal with pending civil suits in high courts, also sought details like number of cases dealt with every day by joint registrars in Delhi High Court and the time expended in a day for recording of evidence.
A bench comprising Justices Ranjan Gogoi and R Banumathi asked the Registrar General (RG) of Delhi High Court to place before it the details as to whether recording of evidence was done on every working day, total number of commissioners appointed for it and the number of cases dealt with each day.

"Evidence recorded by each of the Joint Registrars / Commissioners in the last seven days be placed before the Court," the bench said and sought information about average remuneration paid to the commissioners for everyday's work.
"What is the position of IPR (intellectual property rights) cases, as on date, (147 in number) pending in the category of final hearing and in how many courts such cases are listed for regular hearing," the bench said.
The apex court asked the Delhi High Court's RG, Dinesh Kumar Sharma, to remain personally present before it on January 9 to answer further questions which might be relevant to the issue.

During the hearing, the bench perused the periodical report of December 12 which was submitted before it by the RG.

"In the said report, it is stated that instead of amendments to the Delhi High Court Original Side Rules and Practice Directions, what is now proposed is framing of a new set of rules to comprehensively deal with the situation," the court noted in its order.
The bench was informed that draft of the new rules would be placed before full court of high court for consideration.
The court, after going through the draft rules, said, "We are confident that the full court of the Delhi High Court as and when the proposed/draft new Rules are placed before it will consider the matter".

The bench also asked the RG about the number of pending civil suits in the high court.