ORDER :

1.1 This batch of cases and many more of like variety that oft frequent this Court with, what has now become a familiar grievance and have a common complaint :

When a plaint is presented before the Registry on the Original Side of the District Judiciary, the Registry while scrutinizing it for evaluating its merit for registration, raises baffling if not mindless objections, most of which may be relevant only for final adjudication and not for registering the plaint. And these objections eventually bear the signature of the judicial officer concerned and hence they become the Court’s objections.

Secondly, that plaints are repeatedly returned for curing defects, with the Registry/Court raising its objections in installments.

That a plaint is not taken up for scrutiny for weeks or months, and is neither taken on file, nor returned for weeks to months on end. (Even in this batch there was a CRP(PD) 943/2020 which made a complaint falling in this variety)

1.2 It requires no more than invoking the maxim ‘res ipsa loquitor’ to explain the inconvenience which the Registry and Courts might be creating for the litigants or their counsel. Are not such instances obstructive of right to access justice? Does it not then reflect an element of apathy or plain insensitivity in certain quarters of the District Judiciary? This Court consciously avoids a tempting-drift to waste its efforts in a pointless endeavour to fix the blame, as it realizes that there is a greater responsibility and a marked need to provide the correctives.

2. Before embarking to deal with the larger issue, let the facts of each of the cases in this batch that provided the cause for this Court to do what it proposes to do be introduced:

A. CRP(MD) 915 of 2020:

The grievance of the petitioner here is that his plaint was assigned a Diary No OS.SR 867/2019, but has not been registered as a suit. The prayer in the plaint is for recovery of a block of land measuring 2.44 acres in Sy.No. 218/2A plus a bore well and couple of buildings. The defendant shown in the plaint was Koodankulam Atomic Energy India Ltd. The pleaded cause of action for the suit is that while the lands adjacent to the suit property were acquired for the purposes associated with the Koodankulam Atomic Energy project, the suit property was not included in the acquisition. It further states that part of S.No:218/2 was acquired, and on acquisition the survey field for the acquired portion was sub-divided into S.No:218/2B, whereas the portion not acquired was assigned S.No:218/2A. However, while issuing patta to the defendant, S.No.218/2A was also included. In the said circumstances, the petitioner had instituted O.S.89/2015 seeking a declaration of his title to the property in Sy. No.218/2A. However, there appeared to have crept an error in providing the correct survey number. Therefore, I.A.2/2019 was filed to amend the plaint. During the pendency of this petition, the petitioner was forcibly evicted from Sy. No 218/2A and a compound wall too has been constructed. Hence, the petitioner had filed a suit under Sec.6 of the Specific Relief Act. On 21-08-2019, the plaint was returned. The grounds of return are :

“1. How the suit against the land acquisition proceeding is respect of public project is maintainable in law?

2. As per the plaint records, a suit for declaration of title and permanent injunction was filed before the PDM, Valliyoor and pending in O.S.No.89/2015. Hence, how the suit between the same parties with regard to very same property is maintainable in law to be explored.

3. As per the plaint, annexed document No.7, patta, property is belonged to the defendant by way of land acquisition proceedings. Hence, how the suit is maintainable to be explored.

4. Clean copy to be filed.

Hence, returned. Time two months.”

The petitioner has answered each of these grounds. Now it was again returned. The grounds are