Anil Gidwani, who himself suffered due to several adjournments in litigations in which he is involved, filed a PIL stating that many times adjournments are used by unscrupulous litigants to force compromises, or simply to evade the long arm of the law.
Gidwani approached the court after making applications under RTI to the small causes court and the high court seeking to know the details of compliance of 'Order XVII of the amended Civil Procedure Code (CPC), 2002,' but was denied the information.
The provision deals with adjournments for civil suits and lays down that the court should record reasons for adjournment in writing and that no such adjournment should be granted more than three times to a party during the hearing of the suit.
A division bench of Chief Justice Mohit Shah and Justice Nitin Jamdar while hearing the petition today noted that inadequate number of judges was also a reason for cases dragging on for long.
The case will be heard after two weeks.