Supreme Court Half Yearly Digest (Jan - Jun) Practice & Procedure

Practice and Procedure - Appeal against Allahabad HC judgment which set aside conviction in a murder case - Allowed and remanded - Despite the strong observations made by this Court as far as back in the year 1984 and thereafter repeatedly reiterated, still the practice of pronouncing only the operative portion of the judgment without a reasoned judgment and to pass a reasoned judgment subsequently has been continued. Indrajeet Yadav v. Santosh Singh, 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 386 : AIR 2022 SC 1941

Practice and Procedure - Appeal against the High Court judgment which allowed writ petition answering only one issue, though four other issues were raised - Allowed - Remanded the matter to the Single Judge for deciding the writ petitions afresh and to adjudicate on all the other issues. Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee Bangalore v. State of Karnataka, 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 307 : 2022 (5) SCALE 186

Practice and Procedure - Courts have to adjudicate on all the issues raised in a case and render findings and the judgment on all the issues involved - Adopting a shortcut approach and pronouncing the judgment on only one issue, would increase the burden on the appellate court and in many cases if the decision on the issue decided is found to be erroneous and on other issues there is no adjudication and no findings recorded by the court, the appellate court will have no option but to remand the matter for its fresh decision. (Para 8.4) Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee Bangalore v. State of Karnataka, 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 307 : 2022 (5) SCALE 186

Practice and Procedure - Criminal Appeals - Criminal appeals are being disposed of in a cursory manner and by adopting truncated methods - Practice of disposing of criminal appeals by adopting shortcuts deprecated. (Para 10) State of Rajasthan v. Banwari Lal, 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 357 : 2022 (6) SCALE 71

Practice and Procedure - Difference between expert committees which are set by the courts/tribunals from those set up by the Government in exercise of executive powers or under a particular statute- The latter are set up due to their technical expertise in a given area, and their reports are, subject to judicially observed restraints, open to judicial review before courts when decisions are taken solely based upon them- Courts should be circumspect in rejecting the opinion of these committees, unless they find their decision to be manifestly arbitrary or mala fide. On the other hand, courts/tribunals themselves set up expert committees on occasion. These committees are set up because the fact-finding exercise in many matters can be complex, technical and time-consuming, and may often require the committees to conduct field visits. These committees are set up with specific terms of reference outlining their mandate, and their reports have to conform to the mandate. Once these committees submit their final reports to the court/tribunal, it is open to the parties to object to them, which is then adjudicated upon. The role of these expert committees does not substitute the adjudicatory role of the court or tribunal. The role of an expert committee appointed by an adjudicatory forum is only to assist it in the exercise of adjudicatory functions by providing them better data and factual clarity, which is also open to challenge by all concerned parties. Allowing for objections to be raised and considered makes the process fair and participatory for all stakeholders. (Para 14) Kantha Vibhag Yuva Koli Samaj Parivartan Trust v. State of Gujarat, 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 124 : 2022 (2) SCALE 826

Practice and Procedure - Draft Rules of Criminal Practice 2021 - Bail - Para 17 (i) of the Draft Rules should be read as mandating the furnishing of the bail order to the prison concerned - The bail order should be furnished by the prison authorities to the accused. In Re To Issue Certain Guidelines Regarding Inadequacies and Deficiencies in Criminal Trial, 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 433

Practice and Procedure - Forum shopping - Forum shopping has been termed as disreputable practice by the courts and has no sanction and paramountcy in law. (Para 7-10) Vijay Kumar Ghai v. State of West Bengal, 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 305 : 2022 (5) SCALE 154

Practice and Procedure - Frivolous appeals being filed against unappealable orders wasting precious judicial time - The courts in India are already over­burdened with huge pendency. Such unwarranted proceedings at the behest of the parties who can afford to bear the expenses of such litigations must be discouraged. (Para 37) Shyam Sel and Power Ltd. v. Shyam Steel Industries Ltd; 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 282 : 2022 (4) SCALE 720

Practice and Procedure - In some High Courts, a practice is followed, that whenever a Judicial Officer having good track record tenders his/her resignation, an attempt is made by the Senior Judges of the High Court to counsel and persuade him/her to withdraw the resignation. Valuable time and money is spent on training of a Judicial Officer. Losing a good Judicial Officer without counselling him/her and without giving him/her an opportunity to introspect and re­think, will not be in the interest of either the Judicial Officer or the Judiciary - It will be in the interest of judiciary that such a practice is followed by all the High Courts. (Para 86) Ms. X v. Registrar General, 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 150 : 2022 (3) SCALE 99

Practice and Procedure - Interim order - In matters involving challenge to the constitutionality of a legislation or a rule, the Court must be wary to pass an interim order, unless the Court is convinced that the rules are prima facie arbitrary. (Para 30) Neil Aurelio Nunes v. Union of India, 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 73 : (2022) 4 SCC 1

Practice and Procedure - Judgment must have clarity on exact relief granted so as to avoid difficulty in execution. Pramina Devi v. State of Jharkhand, 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 273 : (2022) 6 SCC 581

Practice and Procedure - Long standing and consistent practice followed on the Original Side of the Bombay High Court - The advocates serve a notice of the proceedings filed in the Court even before it comes up before the Court - The Court acts upon such service effected by the advocate on proof thereof being produced in the form of an affidavit of service. (Para 8) Mohammed Masroor Shaikh v. Bharat Bhushan Gupta, 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 120 : AIR 2022 SC 1126 : (2022) 4 SCC 156

Practice and Procedure - Ordinarily, before passing any order for expeditious proceedings in a particular case , it would be appropriate for the higher Court to appreciate that any such order for one case, without cogent and extremely compelling reasons, might upset the calendar and schedule of the subordinate Court; might result in assigning an unwarranted priority to that particular case over and above other cases pending in that Court; and progression of such other cases might suffer for no reason and none of the faults of the litigants involved therein. Moreover, such petitions, even when moved before the higher Court, need to be examined from all angles. (Para 4, 5) M. Gopalakrishnan v. Pasumpon Muthuramalingam, 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 298

Practice and Procedure - Practice of pronouncing the final orders without a reasoned judgment has to be stopped and discouraged. Indrajeet Yadav v. Santosh Singh, 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 386 : AIR 2022 SC 1941

Practice and Procedure - Procedure adopted by the High Court which, on the 'special mentioning' made by the Additional Public Prosecutor, directed transfer of the cases/final reports filed/pending in the Special Courts exclusively to deal with the Land Grabbing Cases to the respective jurisdictional Courts is unknown to law - The practice of passing such orders on a 'special mentioning' that too, in a disposed of matter is to be deprecated. (Para 4) Registrar General v. State, 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 204 : 2022 (5) SCALE 215

Practice and Procedure - Special Leave Petitions - Whenever documents/ additional documents are to be relied upon are to be produced and as far as possible, they must be filed along with the Special Leave Petition. If for any reason the same have not been filed along with the Special Leave Petition then in that case the same shall be filed well in advance before the Special Leave Petitions are heard by the Courts. By not filing the application for additional documents at the time of filing the Special Leave Petition but filing the same at the last moment and on the previous day of the posting of the Special Leave Petition and many a time late in the evening causes great inconvenience to the Court. (Para 2-4) Priyashi Aashi Developers Pvt. Ltd. v. Mitrajyoti Deka, 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 231

Practice and Procedure - Stay of Legislation - Stay of legislation can only be when the Court is of the opinion that it is manifestly unjust or glaringly unconstitutional - Sufficient reasons should be given for staying legislations. State of Haryana v. Faridabad Industries Association, 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 178

Practice and Procedure - The Delhi High Court made certain remarks on 'Make In India' while disposing a writ petition which it did not decide on merits - Partly allowing the appeal filed by Union of India, the Supreme Court expunged those remarks and observed: On the basis of a solitary case, general observations could not have been made by the High Court that the Indian bidders are being discriminated against. Union of India v. Bharat Fritz Werner Ltd., 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 175 : 2022 (3) SCALE 552

Practice and Procedure - The hierarchy of the trial court and the appellate court exists so that the trial court exercises its discretion upon the settled principles of law. An appellate court, after the findings of the trial court are recorded, has an advantage of appreciating the view taken by the trial judge and examining the correctness or otherwise thereof within the limited area available. If the appellate court itself decides the matters required to be decided by the trial court, there would be no necessity to have the hierarchy of courts. (Para 29) Shyam Sel and Power Ltd. v. Shyam Steel Industries Ltd; 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 282 : 2022 (4) SCALE 720

Practice and Procedure - The High Courts not to make general observations which are not warranted in the case. The High Courts shall refrain from making sweeping observations which are beyond the contours of the controversy and/or issues before them. (Para 3) Union of India v. Bharat Fritz Werner Ltd., 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 175 : 2022 (3) SCALE 552

Practice and Procedure - Whenever an order is struck down as invalid being in violation of the principles of natural justice, there is no final decision of the case and fresh proceedings are left open. All that is done is to vacate the order assailed by virtue of its inherent defect. Such proceedings are not terminated and are usually remitted back. Future Coupons Pvt. Ltd. v. Amazon.com NV Investment Holdings LLC, 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 114 : (2022) 6 SCC 121