The Supreme Court today declined to urgently intervene in a service matter filed by an employee who cited financial distress and the responsibility of caring for her 80% disabled son due to the prolonged pendency of proceedings before the Allahabad High Court.
The Counsel for the petitioner told the Court that the petitioner had not received her salary since July 2022 and that her family was surviving on the income earned by her daughters. The petitioner further stated that he had joined duty but had subsequently gone on medical leave because his disabled son required constant personal care. “He’s a grown-up son. I have to nurture, take him… to take him anywhere, to give him a shower. I don’t have the means to keep a medical aid,” cousel told the Court while requesting an expedited hearing before the High Court.
The Bench of Chief Justice Surya Kany, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul M Pancholi, however, observed that numerous litigants approach constitutional courts citing equally serious personal hardships and that prioritisation of one matter over another was difficult.
“Motor accident claims, he says, ‘My priority, because I’ve lost my brother, or I’m permanently disabled, I don’t have any source of life.’ Person who is in matrimonial dispute, they say matrimonial dispute has a lifetime. We can’t wait for becoming senior citizen, please tell them to do it. There are persons in custody, incarcerated, they say our criminal case happened. These are all competing claims and each claim has its own merit. But that individual, their grief is most.”
When the petitioner pointed out that he had already filed six early-listening applications before the High Court, the Bench advised him to continue pursuing remedies there. “Please go and file an application,” the Court said, while noting that similar requests for urgent listing were increasingly being made before the Supreme Court in matters pending before High Courts.
The Court ultimately indicated that the petitioner may move another application before the Chief Justice of the High Court seeking consideration of the matter.