judgment

MARKANDEY KATJU, J. —

1.Leave granted.

2.This appeal has been filed against the impugned interim order dated 11.4.2007 of the Gujarat High Court in Criminal Miscellaneous Application No. 13747/2005 in Criminal Appeal No. 728/2005.

3. A perusal of the impugned interim order shows that a Criminal Appeal was filed with a delay of 25 days. The learned Judge of the Gujarat High Court (Hon’ble R.S. Garg, J.) on the application for condonation of delay in filing the appeal passed the impugned order directing the Chief Secretary and Law Secretary of the Gujarat government to be personally present before him on 20.4.2007 “so that the Court may have a direct dialogue with them that what effective steps they are taking to provide sufficient staff to the office of the Government Pleader/Public Prosecutor and to avoid delay at every stage”. It may be mentioned that the reason given for the delay of 25 days was the shortage of staff including stenographers in the office of the Public Prosecutor.

4.In our opinion, the learned Judge of Gujarat High Court was totally unjustified in summoning the Chief Secretary and Law Secretary merely because there was a delay of 25 days in filing the appeal.