In the wake of the Supreme Court giving the urgent listing to the bail plea of Republic TV anchor Arnab Goswami, Gokhale’s RTI had sought the following information.
In crucial information revealed by the Supreme Court in response to an RTI application, the apex court has said that 1072 cases relating to bail and suspension of sentence are pending in the Supreme Court as on December 18, 2020, LiveLaw reported. This includes 931 petitions seeking bail/interim-bail and 141 cases seeking suspension of sentence.
In the reply given to the application filed by RTI activist Saket Gokhale, the information which is not otherwise available in the public domain was given by the Additional Registrar and Central Public Information Officer of the Supreme Court, Ajay Agarwal.
In the wake of the Supreme Court giving the urgent listing to the bail plea of Republic TV anchor Arnab Goswami, Gokhale’s RTI had sought following information:
1) Please state the current backlog/number of cases of interim bail applications pending with the Registry of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India that haven’t had a first listing yet as on 12/11/2020/
2) Please state the average waiting period between filing of interim bail applications with the Registry and their listing in front of the appropriate Hon’ble Bench.
The CPIO of the top court, in the reply dated December 18, said that there was no information maintained by the SC regarding the interim bail applications which have not had a first listing as on November 12.
The reply stated: “The information data is not maintained in the manner as sought for by you.”
The reply from CPIO, however, furnished information regarding the number of cases relating to bail and sentence suspension pending in the SC.
“…as per the Supreme Court Subject Category 1409 which deals with “Criminal matters relating to bail/interim bail/anticipatory bail”, the number of pending SLP matters pertaining to the above Subject Category (as per data available in ICMIS software as on 18.12.2020) is 931 (which includes matters pertaining to not only interim bail but also bail/anticipatory bail, etc.). Further, as per Supreme Court Subject Category 1436 which deals with “Criminal matters relating to suspension of sentence”, the number of pending matters pertaining to the above subject Category (as per data available in ICMIS software as on 18.12.2020) is 141,” the reply stated.
In response to the second query made by Gokhle, about the average waiting period between the filing of interim bail applications and listing before the bench, the CPIO stated that no information/data is maintained.
“The information/data is not maintained in the manner as sought for However, all matters are listed/eliminated/deleted as per guidelinines, practice and procedure which are available in public domain viz. website www.sci.gov.in under the link “Practice & Procedure and also in accordance with the circulars and general or specific directions of the Hon’ble Court. You may, therefore, visit the website for getting the desired information”, the reply said.
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