Single Judge of High Court not Sub-ordinate to the High Court.

The appellant in C.M.A.No.670 of 1949 on the file of this court seeks to file an appeal against the judgment of Mack, J., dated 13th February, 1953, dismissing his appeal. The matter comes up before us on an objection by the Office that the appeal is not maintainable.

It is obvious that an appeal is not maintainable under clause 15 of the Letters Patent. Learned counsel appearing be ore us has not sought to raise any contention on this clause. What he contended was that an appeal would lie under Article 227(1) of the Constitution, which runs as follows:

“Every High Court shall have superintendence over all courts and tribunals throughout the territories in relation to which it exercises jurisdiction.”

This provision is a substantial re-enactment of section 107 of the Government of India Act, 1915 and section 15 of the earlier Charter Act. So far as we are aware, this provision has never been understood to confer a right on the High Court as such to interfere with judicial orders and judgments made and passed by individual Judges or Division Benches of the High Court. It cannot be said that a Judge of the High Court disposing of a Civil Miscellaneous Appeal is a Court within the meaning of Article 227(1) of the Constitution and that the High Court has power of superintendence over him so that it could interfere with his judgments. In our opinion the power of the High Court under Article 227(1) is confined to subordinate courts and judicial and quasi-judicial tribunals which are also subordinate to it. A Judge of the High Court is not as such subordinate to the High Court.

Learned counsel relied upon the observations of the Privy Council in Hurrish Chunder Chowdry v. Kalisundari Debia1, where their Lordships did not accept the view of Garth, C.J., in In the matter of the petition of Rally Soondery Debia2. We do not think that these observations help the appellants in any way. Those observation must be read in the light of the context and obviously have reference to the view of Garth, C.J., as to the nature of the order of Pontifex, J., in that case, namely, that it was merely ministerial and it could not be said that the learned Judge was usurping any jurisdiction in passing the order.

The proposed appeal is incompetent. The memorandum of appeal will therefore be rejected.

V.P.S. ----- Appeal rejected.