On jdk1.4.
Add mouse listener on JTabbedPane.
Set SCROLL_TAB_LAYOUT policy to the JTabbedPane.

Then when user clicks on tabs of that tabbed pane. There are no mouse events propagated to the mouse listener.
The problem is, for drawing the scroll tab layout the tabbed pane UI uses internal components thus, breaking the contract.

I guess the events have to be propagated to the JTabbedPane listeners just like when WRAP_TAB_LAYOUT policy is set, it shouldn't matter which method for drawing the component is used.