2005 Supreme(SC) 451

2005(2) Supreme 540
Supreme Court of India
(From Gauhati High Court)
R.C. Lahoti, CJI & G.P. Mathur, J.
Bolin Chetia —Appellant
versus
Jogadish Bhuyan and Ors. —Respondents
Civil Appeal No. 7376 of 2003
Decided on 11-3-2005
Counsel for the Parties :
For the Appellant : Sushil Kumar Jain, A.P. Dhamija, Pradeep Aggarwal, Puneet Jain, H.D. Thanvi and L.P. Singh, Advocates.
For the Respondents : Pragyan P. Sharma and Dr. Kailash Chand, Advocates.

Important point
Though an appeal u/s 116A of Representation of People Act is preferred as of right, yet inherent power of Supreme Court to summarily dismiss the appeal at admission stage is not taken away.

Headnote:Representation of People Act, 1951—Section 116A—Appeal against order dismissing election petition by High Court—Should respondent be necessarily and in routine put on notice, forgoing application of judicial mind to merits of appeal?—Did Court not have power to summarily throw out appeal howsoever worthless it might be?—Whether appeal deserved to be admitted for bi-parte hearing?—Though an appeal u/s 116A of the Act was preferred as of right yet the inherent power of Court to summarily dismiss appeal at admission stage was not taken away—Matter directed to be placed for preliminary hearing.

       Held : A first appeal is generally open for hearing on questions of law and fact, both, and the appellate court possesses power to make all such orders as the original court could have made. The discretion conferred on the appellate court to dismiss the appeal at its threshold is a judicial discretion and cannot be exercised arbitrarily or by whim or fancy. The appellate courts exercise the discretion in favour of summary dismissal sparingly and only by way of exception. However, that does not tantamount to saying that the appellate court does not possess the power to dismiss an appeal summarily and at the threshold. Such power to summarily dismiss can be exercised, depending on the facts and circumstances of a given case, before issuing notice to the respondent and even before sending for the record of the inferior forum. Similarly, the appellate court possesses power to admit or reject the appeal in its entirety, as also, to admit the appeal in part in regard to a particular part of decree and dismiss it in part if the two parts are severable. Once the appeal is admitted, the appellate court may not, except in very exceptional cases, restrict any grounds on which the appeal should be heard. Where the appellate court exercises its discretion in favour of dismissing the first appeal without issuance of notice to the respondent, it is expected that the reasons for doing so are placed on record. Such recording of reasons is necessary where the order of summary dismissal is open to challenge before a superior forum. This rule of practice does not apply to the Supreme Court as it is the final Court and as no appeals lie against the decisions of this Court, including a decision by which an appeal is summarily dismissed. (Para 9)

       The power to summarily dismiss a first appeal, even if the appeal is statutory and filed as of right must be held to be inherent and so vesting in this Court as one of necessity. The Constitution Bench decision of this Court in Union of India and Another Vs. Raghubir Singh (Dead) by LRs. etc. (1989) 2 SCC 754 is, in this context, quite instructive. Chief ­Justice R.S. Pathak speaking for the Court noticed the volume of work demanding the attention of the Supreme Court of India which made it necessary as a general rule of practice and convenience for the Court to sit in divisions rather than the Court as a whole in the interest of promoting certainty and consistency in judicial decisions. The volume of work has gradually increased. It is the justice oriented approach of this Court, developed by tradition and convention and in its craving to come up to the expectations of ‘We, the people of India’ that the Court has at times exercised its jurisdiction for redeeming injustice even in individual cases though the Court was expected by the Constitution makers to be a federal court concentrating only on resolution of constitutional issues. This has resulted in adding to its arrears of cases in spite of ceaselessly working for deciding the cases, as fast as it can, and carefully avoiding the two extremes, namely ‘justice delayed’ and ‘justice hurried’. At times, the Court has been criticized for being too liberal in entertaining the cases and adding to the pendency of dockets before it. It is, therefore, all the more necessary that worthless cases, wholly devoid of any merit, ought to be checked at the entry point itself. (Para 21)

       We are, therefore, clearly of the opinion that though an appeal under Section 116A of the Act is preferred as of right, yet the inherent power of this Court to summarily dismiss the appeal at the admission stage is not taken away. We hasten to add that such power would be exercised only by way of exception such as, on the Court feeling convinced that the appeal does not raise any such question of fact or law as would persuade this Court to put the respondent on notice before hearing. (Para 23)