Apex Court penalizes Rs. 1 lakh cost on Central government for non-serious appeal against retired soldier

The Supreme Court of India has imposed costs of Rs. 1 lakh on Central government for filing an appeal against a former soldier, Naik Balbir Singh when similar appeals had already been dismissed earlier by the Court.
 
The matter was heard by a Bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta which did not hide its disagreement with the conduct of the Union of India in filing the appeal.
 
“This appeal was filed well after several similar matters were dismissed by this Court. We cannot appreciate the conduct of the Union of India in this regard of filing civil appeals/ special leave petitions after the issue have been concluded by this Court.”
 
The Court noted that filing such appeals was unnecessarily adding burden to the justice delivery system for which the Union of India was fully responsible.
 
“This is unnecessarily adding to the burden of the Justice Delivery Systems for which the Union of India must take full responsibility.”
 
It proceeded to impose costs of Rs. 1 lakh on the Union government which will be utilized for juvenile justice issues.
 
“The civil appeal is dismissed with costs of Rs.1,00,000/- to be deposited by the appellants with the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee within 4 weeks from today for utilization of juvenile justice issues.”
 
The Court also urged the Union of India to shape up its litigation policy. The matter will now be listed after five weeks to assess compliance with the Court’s order.
 
Litigation against military veterans and employees has been a long-standing problem. A High-Level Committee had been constituted by former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar to tackles the issue. The committee had rendered 75 recommendations and despite acceptance of many of those recommendations by the Centre, implementation of the same is yet to happen.