New Delhi, Aug 23 (IANS): The Supreme Court has asked the apex court's Registrar to ensure that dealing assistants and senior court assistants perform their work diligently.

During the hearing of a criminal case, a bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and P.K. Mishra found that a special leave petition listed under Diary No 31838 of 2023 was assigned a regular number i.e. SLP (Crl.) No. 10022/2024.

Thereafter, the Justice Datta-led Bench had asked the SC registry to "put up an appropriate report clarifying the position".

The petitioner’s counsel contended that though the special leave petition was time-barred and an application seeking condonation of delay was filed, the Registry informed him that the application for condonation of delay had been rendered redundant since the special leave petition was filed within time.

"Such an opinion was formed by the Registry based on the fact that the petitioner had applied for a certified copy of the impugned judgment and order and the time taken for obtaining the certified copy has been excluded from the computing limitation. There is, however, no report to that effect on record," the apex court noted.

It asked the Registry to file within a week a copy of the report prepared, if at all, whilst forming the opinion that the special leave petition was filed within the period of limitation and is not time-barred.

"The Registrar shall ensure that the dealing assistants and senior court assistants diligently perform their work. Any recurrence of error or remissness of the nature that we have noticed, if brought to our notice once again, may expose them to serious consequences," the Supreme Court warned.

The special leave petition has been ordered to be relisted after ten days along with the report.