The Secretary General of the Supreme Court of India Mr. Atul Madhukar Kurhekar issued a Circular on 08.08.2022 to bring into the notice of the people concerned that there have been many changes in the working of the Supreme Court which includes abolishing Section XVI-A and shifting all the Arbitration Cases to PIL(W) sections.

As per the system of the Supreme Court working the Transfer Petitions were dealt with by Section XVI-A which has not been abolished and all the transfer petitions would go to the sections which have been allocated to the respective States. The entire staff of Section XVI-A is also transferred/deployed to Section 1-B (Fresh filing). 

The circular reads as under:-

"All pending and freshly filed Transfer Petitions are allocated and hereby directed to be distributed to all Judicial Sections as per their respective States based upon the place where the Transferror Court is situated."

It further says. "The staff members presently working/deputed in Section XVI-A are hereby transferred/deployed in Section I-B with immediate effect. The Additional Registrar (I-B) under the guidance of Registrar (J-L) and Registrar (J-A) shall prepare and bifurcate the total staff into three sub-Branches; i.e, First sub-Branch shall exclusively deal with e-Filed cases, Second sub-Branch will cater to manual/physical filing of cases and third sub-Branch will cater to preparation of judicial files and paperbooks."

With regard to the Arbitration Petition, the circular says, "With regard to pending and freshly instituted Arbitration Petitions, the same have been allocated to Section PIL(W)."

As per the circular the Special Leave to Appeal and Civil Appeals from the State of Jammu & Kashmir along with Review Petitions and Curative Petitions arising therefrom are allocated to Section XIIA with immediate effect.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) Hony. Secretary Mr. Rohit Pandey told the 'TLA' that the move of the Supreme Court is welcomed and the same is done by the Supreme Court for smooth functioning. This has increased the strength of Section I-B which would reduce its workload.

Read/download the Circular