Ignoring trial procedure may lead to corruption: Court

New Delhi, March 15 : Pulling up a trial court for not following the laid down procedure, the Delhi High Court Monday said that statutory provisions cannot be ignored during trials as it would create chaos, breed contempt for law and infuse corruption.

Justice S.N.Dhingra, while setting aside the trial court's order for allowing a litigant to file some documents 26 years after the filing of a tenancy case, said: "Disadvantage of an individual cannot be a ground to ignore the statute. Statutory provisions are made for general application and to give certainty to the law."

Pulling up the trial court for allowing the party to file documents, the court said, "No doubt, procedure is hand maid of justice but what is justice cannot be a concept and idea of an individual judge. Justice has to be looked from the broader prospective. If a judge is given discretion to decide applications without following the procedure as laid down by parliament, that will result into total chaos and would breed contempt for law and infuse corruption."

"The documents cannot be allowed to be filed so casually by observing that no objection has been taken that these documents were forged or they were going to help in adjudicating the issues," the court observed while stating that all documents pertaining to the case must be filed along with the pleadings.