Calling it a very sad state of affairs, the Allahabad High Court criticised several advocates for not assisting the court fairly.The court made the observation while hearing a petition filed by Saba alias Saba Siddiqui seeking directions to the Principal Judge, Family Court, Bahraich for expeditious disposal of her case seeking maintenance from her husband.Saba had filed her petition on June 7, 2023. On March 12 this year, the family court passed an order granting her interim maintenance. The matter was fixed for May 23 for evidence.Saba’s lawyers approached the HC for her petition to be expedited.When the petition came up on September 16, the High Court noted several deficiencies. The May 23 order was missing from the record, and the orders passed by the trial court were annexed in a haphazard manner, forcing the court to spend excessive time reviewing the file.The court had passed over the matter to give the petitioner’s counsel time to correct the record and assist the court properly.However, on the next date, the advocate began advancing his submissions afresh without pointing out the previous directive or addressing the document issue.Story continues below this adThe court, in its order last month, observed, “It is indeed a very sad state of affairs where courts are overburdened with work and several learned counsel do not assist the court fairly and to the best of their ability.”The court also recorded the scale of its workload on that particular day: it had 91 fresh matters, 182 listed matters and six miscellaneous applications.The court’s scheduled sitting time is for 300 minutes, it added, stating that the roster assigned includes bail applications, anticipatory bail applications, criminal matters pertaining to the Enforcement Directorate and CBI, and all criminal cases involving MPs, MLAs and MLCs among others.Citing a Supreme Court directive to decide bail matters within two months, the HC observed, “When such a huge number of cases are being filed before this court… such poor quality of assistance being provided by advocates is creating a hurdle in speedy dispensation of justice to the litigants.”Story continues below this adIt also said it is really unfortunate that repeated requests “made by this court through reported judgments has not been acceded to by the members of the Bar”.“In these circumstances, when the court is under oath to perform its duties to the best of its ability, there is no option except to go through the record to ensure rendering justice to the petitioner despite poor assistance rendered by the advocate,” it said.“The petition under Section 125 CrPC was filed by the petitioner in 2023. Although it is true that all courts in the state are working under immense workload, it is equally true that applications under 125 CrPC need to be decided expeditiously. The order sheet of the family court revealed that the opposite party has repetitively abstained from appearing; the family court passed an order for proceeding with the case ex parte,” the court stated in its order.“Keeping in view the aforesaid facts and circumstances of the case, the petition is disposed of by issuing a direction to the Principal Judge, Family Court, Bahraich, to proceed with the case… expeditiously in accordance with law, without granting any unnecessary adjournment to any of the parties and by fixing dates at short intervals,” the court stated in its order.