1 CA-62.11 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY APPELLATE SIDE  CIVIL CIVIL APPLICATION NO.62 OF 2011 IN REVIEW PETITION STAMP NO.3025 OF 2011 IN REVIEW PETITION NO.18 OF 2010 IN CIVIL REVISION APPLICATION NO.80 OF 2010 Pyaresaheb Keshrisingh Rana .... Applicant Vs. Mrs. Khairoonissa Mohammed Kapadi .... Respondent Shri Mathews J. Nedumpara for the Applicant. Shri Vishal Kanade for the Respondent. CORAM: R.C. CHAVAN, J. DATED: FEBRUARY 11, 2011 P.C: 1. With apologies to the Bar Members and the litigants waiting for their matters to be heard, I proceed to spend some precious judicial time for dictating this order in the Court since the applicant has come up with a very queer proposition that a Judgment which is not dictated in the Court is not a Judgment pronounced and, therefore, not a Judgment in the eyes of law. When a matter is heard by this 2 CA-62.11 Court and conclusions are reached, ordinarily if there is pressure of work and the dictation of the order is going to take a long time, only the result of the proceedings is pronounced for the reasons which follow. This is the standard practice, at least as far as I am concerned. This practice helps in saving the precious time of the Court, as also relieves the litigants of the speculation as to what is to happen to their matter. In such cases, after a Judgment is dictated, its transcript is examined, signed and uploaded on the website of the High Court as also made available to the parties, if they seek certified or authenticated copies of the same. Since the parties have tendency to raise disputes over the time when the certified copy became available, the practice is to take the date on which the Judgment is uploaded on the website of the High Court to be the date of on which the Judgment became available to the parties. The period for which the Judgment is stayed, therefore, is reckoned from the date the Judgment is uploaded on the website since till then as none of the parties have the copy, that there is no question of executing that Judgment. 2. In this case, the applicant had first 3 CA-62.11 filed a revision application which was first disposed of after it was argued by a senior counsel Shri N.V. Walawalkar for the applicant and Advocate Shri G.S. Godbole. It was decided by the Order dated 4-8-2010. Thereafter, the applicant in-person filed a review application. The review application was entertained and the revision application was reheard with the applicant being permitted to file such notes as he choses. He was also allowed to address the Court orally for twice the time allotted to the senior counsel for his adversary. Ultimately, the matter was posted on 24-11-2010 for the purpose of enabling me to clear any doubts that I may have in my mind after reading the material which was produced. On that day, since the arguments were concluded, the parties were orally informed that the revision petition was dismissed by pronouncing so in the open Court. The applicant was present in-person at that time and sought eight weeks time for enabling him to take the matter to the Supreme Court. Therefore, the operation of the Judgment was stayed for a period of eight weeks from the date the Judgment would be available on the Website of the High Court. The Judgment became available on 16-12-2010. 4 CA-62.11 3. Thereafter, the applicant moved the present application for a second review and sought its circulation. The applicant was told that there was no case for a second review. All the same, Advocate Shri Mathews J. Nedumpara, appeared for the applicant just before 2:00 p.m. on the date the circulation was sought on 7-2-2011 and sought that he should be heard and the matter should be circulated. Though the matter was not allowed to be circulated, I had called for the papers and had gone through the applications in the recess. At 5:00 p.m. Advocate Shri Mathews Nedumpara again made such a similar request and made a grievance about the pronouncement of the Judgment being improper. Eventually, on 10-2-2011, at 3:00 p.m., Advocate Shri Mathews Nedumpara again requested that the matter may be heard and the Court may not sign the orders earlier passed. Therefore, the learned counsel was given five minutes to argue his matter today morning. Eventually, he took about fifteen minutes and has sought to make the following points. 4. He submitted that the Judgment should be pronounced in the open Court itself and publishing Judgment on the Website of the High Court is no pronouncement at all. He wanted to 5 CA-62.11 cite some Judgments for this proposition and eloquently quoted some legal maxims. As already pointed out, it is not necessary to dictate the whole Judgment within the hearing of the parties and it is enough if the operative part is conveyed on conclusion of the arguments so as to put at rest the speculation about the Judgment. Dictation of a Judgment in the Court consumes time and the scarce resources is wasted in dictating the Judgment. In any case, if such method of pronouncement is not correct and the Judgment is non est or a nullity, the applicant could raise this ground before the appropriate forum and cannot be a ground for review of the Judgment. 5. The learned counsel next submitted that no fair opportunity to address the Court was given to the applicant. This was not correct. The applicant was heard at adequate length and had also filed notes. Therefore, this grievance has to be rejected outright. May be in some distant past Judges would have been justified in listening to the parties till the parties were exhausted. With heavy backlog of cases, it would not be possible for a Judge, in the present days, to indulge in the luxury of listening to a matter ad nauseam at the cost 6 CA-62.11 of other litigants waiting for justice. Therefore, what is adequate time for hearing a matter or not would be controlled by the Judge presiding over the Court and not by the desire of the parties. In my view, considering the controversy raised, the time given to the applicant was adequate. In any case, if he had any grievance on that count, that could also be raised in the appropriate forum and could not have been a ground for review. 6. The learned counsel for the applicant also submitted that the applicant did not get an opportunity to read the evidence though the learned counsel was aware of the limits of exercise of revisional jurisdiction. There was no question of the applicant not being permitted to read the evidence since I had read the entire evidence which had been placed on the record by the parties. Therefore, whether it was read or not, did not really matter. 7. The next contention raised by the learned counsel for the applicant was extremely unfortunate. He submitted that his client felt that justice was not done in the case as the son and daughter-in-law of a sitting Judge of this Court had appeared in the matter. I had 7 CA-62.11 not at all known as to who are the Advocates on the record representing the respondent. The arguments were advanced before me by senior counsel Shri A.A. Kumbhakoni. On being asked as to who were those relations of the Judge who represented the respondent in the matter, Advocate Shri Mathews Nedumpara told that it was Shri Vishal Kanade and Ms Jai Kanade, son and daughter-in-law of Shri Justice V.M. Kanade and then the Advocate representing the respondent stood up and said that he was Advocate Vishal Kanade, son of Shri Justice V.M. Kanade. Whether sons and relations of Judges should be practising in the Court is a matter for the Parliament to decide. However, here neither did I know that any son or relation of a sitting Judge was holding the brief for the respondent in this case nor did I know the relations themselves. Therefore, though as Advocate Shri Mathews Nedumpara submitted, justice should not only be done but should be seen to have been done, in this case, it is not clear as to why the applicant felt that justice was not done, without bothering to check-up whether I had any sort of acquaintance with the Advocates who appeared for the respondent. 8 CA-62.11 8. In any case, if Advocates Shri Vishal Kanade and Ms Jai Kanade represented the respondent and if the applicant felt that this was likely to influence my Judgment because they happen to be relations of a sitting Judge of this Court, the applicant ought to have raised this objection when the matter was argued by himself. Only after the matter was decided against him, did he make such an allegation, which is extremely unfortunate. 9. Before making allegations that the Court was influenced by the fact that the relations of Shri Justice V.M. Kanade held the brief for the other side, the learned counsel should have verified the facts and should not have become a mere spokes person for his client to speak out whatever was conveyed by his client. Just as Advocate Shri Mathews Nedumpara was good enough to remind Judges of their duties, he, too, should not have forgotten of his duties as an officer of the Court and the limits to which arguments could be advanced in a Court. 10. On merits, there is absolutely nothing to justify the condonation of delay as also for entertaining the review application. The 9 CA-62.11 dilatory tactics adopted by the applicant, who had in fact sought eight weeks time to approach the Supreme Court, but utilized it for preparing a similar review application to again protract the matter further and seek a further stay, warrants saddling exemplary costs on the applicant. But considering the fact that the applicant is an old man who has lived possibly for the most part of his life in the said house and therefore may be weary of leaving it in the evening of his life, I do not propose to impose any costs as I reject his applications. 11. At this stage, Advocate Shri Mathews Nedumpara submitted that the execution of the decree may be stayed for some further period to enable his client to approach the Supreme Court. Once having taken time to approach the Supreme Court and not having gone to the Supreme Court, the applicant cannot be trusted to utilize the time for going to the Supreme Court and therefore cannot be shown any such indulgence. In the event the orders of this Court and the Courts below are set aside by the Supreme Court, the applicant can always be restituted to possession of the suit property. Therefore, there is no question of grant of any further stay. 10 CA-62.11 (R.C. CHAVAN, J.)