Several judges of the apex court have now started the exercise of giving written documents to the lawyers in a nutshell and fixing the time for the arguments. Soon a rule can be made for this. In recent times many judges have started asking lawyers to give a brief summary of arguments, before the arguments.
Recently, a bench headed by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul said that this happens only in the Supreme Court of India where lawyers argue for hours and days and keep on presenting hundreds of pages of documents one after the other. The bench said that by this the valuable time of the court was wasted. Justice Kaul said that the time has come when lawyers have to change their mindset. The bench said that with thick documents and hours of debate, how will we be able to do justice to the appeals which are pending for more than 10 years.
It is not that lawyers are being called upon for time. The Supreme Court itself is also trying to write its decisions clear and short. A three-member bench of the Supreme Court has said in its decision that the judges should try that the decisions are clear and short so that the common man can understand them.
According to the Supreme Court website, 69,212 cases are pending in the Supreme Court till July 2, 2021. Of these, 442 cases are pending before the Constitution Bench.
There have been demands many times inside and outside the court that the Supreme Court should be allowed to remain a constitutional court. There, only constitutional matters should be heard, while other matters should be heard in the circuit branch. However, a final decision in this regard has not yet been taken.
In the Supreme Court of many countries of the world, there is a deadline for the arguments of lawyers. There is a time limit of 25 minutes for the arguments of the lawyers in the US Supreme Court. They have to keep all their things within this fixed time limit.