Srinagar, Sept. 18, KDC: Taking serious note of advocates routinely failing to appear in cases listed for the national mediation initiative, the High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh has warned that petitions left unattended by counsel will be dismissed for non-prosecution at the risk and cost of the defaulting party.
The warning was issued by Justice Rahul Bharti while dealing with a writ petition, where neither the petitioner nor the respondents were represented by counsel when the matter was taken up. According to details, the case was listed at Serial No. 195 of Supplementary Cause List-1 under the category “For Referral to the Special Mediation Drive-Mediation for the Nation 3.0”.
“This Court is of studied observation that with respect to the Cases which are getting listed in the Supplementary Cause List-1 ‘For Referral to the Special Mediation Drive-Mediation for the Nation 3.0’, learned counsel for the parties are not keen in causing their appearances as a result whereof no assistance is coming forth from the end of the Bar for enabling the Court to take a call as to whether there is a realistic purpose of referring the case for mediation or not and most of the cases are going unrepresented and unattended by the counsel, in particular, on the petitioner’s side,” the bench said.
To address the recurring absence of counsel, Justice Bharti directed the Registrar Judicial at Jammu to immediately issue a general notice addressed to all advocates, making it clear that in the event of non-appearance or non-attendance, the court may exercise its judicial discretion to dismiss the case for non-prosecution at the risk and cost of the defaulting counsel or party.
The matter has been directed to be listed again on October 14, 2026. (KDC)
