A bench comprising Justices Hima Kohli and Ahsanuddin Amanullah criticized Govardhan for pursuing the case and thereby wasting judicial time, ultimately setting aside the High Court’s division bench ruling.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court labeled an appeal as a “legal misadventure” and imposed a penalty of Rs 1.2 lakh on the appellant on Thursday. The court stated that pursuing the case led to the unnecessary consumption of the Madras High Court’s valuable judicial time, which could have otherwise been devoted to addressing the “call of justice” for the “teeming millions.”
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The Supreme Court was reviewing an appeal by B Govardhan challenging a Madras High Court decision involving a loan dispute and the subsequent mortgage of properties by the debtor to the lender.
A bench comprising Justices Hima Kohli and Ahsanuddin Amanullah criticized Govardhan for pursuing the case and thereby wasting judicial time, ultimately setting aside the High Court’s division bench ruling.
“Regrettably, the situation was not as straightforward as it appeared… However, due to this legal misadventure that wasted the High Court’s precious judicial time—which could have been better utilized to serve justice for the masses—we impose a penalty of Rs 1.2 lakh on the appellant,”
remarked Justice Amanullah, who authored the judgment for the bench.
The court directed that the penalty must be deposited within six weeks with the High Court registry. Of the total amount, Rs 40,000 each will be allocated to juvenile welfare, welfare of advocates’ clerks, and legal aid, with the specifics to be determined by the High Court’s acting chief justice and Legal Services Committee.
The receipt of the deposit is to be filed with the Supreme Court registry. If the appellant fails to comply, the matter will be revisited with the appropriate Office Report.
The case originated when P Ragothaman and his wife, who were involved in the building materials business, sought a Rs 10 lakh loan from Govardhan in 1995, secured by their properties. The dispute was initially decided by a single-judge bench of the High Court in 2010, which ruled that Ragothaman had agreed to “create an equitable mortgage by depositing the title deeds.”
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However, a division bench, hearing an intra-court appeal, sided with Ragothaman, stating that there was insufficient proof of the mortgage’s execution.
The Supreme Court reinstated the single-judge bench’s decision that an equitable mortgage did exist, but it reduced the interest rate from 36% per annum to 12% per annum in the interest of justice.