Supreme Court criticizes litigants for using unfair methods for interim relief

New Delhi, Jan.8 (ANI): The Supreme Court has criticised the popular practice among litigants adopting unfair means to approach courts demanding interim relief only to enjoy its benefits and intentionally spoiling the final scrutiny of the matter.

A Bench comprising Justices R. V. Raveendran and J. M. Panchal said that any attempt by a litigant to retain the benefit of the interim order by avoiding final adjudication, required to be deprecated.

"In fact, it requires to be dealt with sternly," said the Bench.

The apex court pointed out those cases in which litigants approach the court at the last minute for relief with an interim prayer.

Once the interim order is achieved, the litigant makes an innocuous submission to the court that he does not want to press ahead with the petition and gets the matter disposed off, thereby achieving the goal of securing relief without adjudication, the Bench stated.

The Bench, while expressing concern, said that the result of such a practice is that in many cases, a litigant who would not get the relief on detailed scrutiny of his claim during the final hearing, he gets away with the undeserved relief secured by way of an interim order.

The remarks were made while attending to an appeal filed by Abhimanyoo Ram which challenged an Allahabad High Court judgement in a matter related to the selection of government medical officers. (ANI)