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Judgment
Heard learned Counsel for the Petitioner.
This writ petition has been filed with the principal prayer that a civil suit of 1999 should be directed to be disposed of within three months by the trial court.
It appears from a large number of writ petitions coming up before us with similar prayers, that litigants have somehow got the impression that such orders can be obtained from the High Court for the asking by merely filing a writ petition.
There is a shortage of judicial officers at every level. Almost all judicial officers are overburdened with cases. It is practically impossible for any Civil Judge to decide any civil suit within three months. Therefore, we are not inclined to entertain this kind of a prayer.
We would also take this opportunity to point out that the litigants, filing such petitions, do not even care to find out and mention how many other cases are pending in the particular Court, what are their comparative ages and urgency. In fact in most of the writ petitions even the order-sheets of the court below is not annexed to show the reason for the delay in the disposal of the case.
Without all those details, issuing such mandamus merely for the asking may, in the present day situations, have the undesirable result of the subordinate judicial officers having to face contempt proceedings despite their best endeavour to comply with such orders. We therefore clarify that where a judicial officer is faced with such orders of the High Court or other subordinate superior Court fixing a time frame to decide a particular case and he is unable to comply due to unavoidable reasons, he would not be deemed to be guilty of "deliberate" disobedience if the unavoidable reasons find mention in every order of the order-sheet subsequent to receipt of the order of the subordinate superior Court or the High Court.
Therefore, normally it would be desirable to leave it to the judicial officer concerned, who is expected to be aware about the rest of his diary, to consider the litigants prayer for expediting the cases.
This writ petition is dismissed as above leaving it open to the Petitioner to approach the trial court.