Intra Court Appeals arising from orders passed in criminal jurisdiction by a Single Judge are not maintainable under Clause 15 of the Letters Patent.

JUDGMENT :

R.SURESH KUMAR, J.

This Intra Court Appeal arise out of the order of the writ court, dated 26.04.2018 made in W.P.No.3208 of 2018.

2. The short facts which are required to be noticed for the disposal of this writ appeal reads thus :

(i) That the appellant was working as an Examiner in the Customs Department. Due to a alleged mis-declaration of goods where the goods were fully fitted Air Conditioner, whereas it has been declared as part of the Air Conditioner and imported to India through Chennai Port, there had been a revenue loss to the exchequer of the Customs Department.

(ii) The appellant being the Examiner along with few other officials who, according to the Department, had been instrumental for such a mis- declaration to happen as they have not properly examined or evaluated thereby it led to loss of exchequer. Therefore the Department decided to launch a prosecution against those officials including the appellant.

(iii) Therefore the Department wanted to get a sanction order under Section 19 (1)(c) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 from the competent authority namely the Commissioner of Customs Import (Sea Port).

(iv) Such a sanction order for prosecution had been issued by the competent authority on 30.09.2013 which was under challenge in the writ petition filed by the appellant who stood as the writ petitioner before the writ court.

(v) The learned Judge heard the said writ petition and ultimately concluded on merits that, the decision taken by the competent authority to issue sanction for launching prosecution against the writ petitioner was justified and therefore he was pleased to dismiss the said writ petition through the impugned order.

(vi) Whether such a decision taken by the writ court is correct or not is the issue raised in this Intra Court Appeal. However in view of the order that is proposed to be passed in this appeal, we do not wish to go into the merits of the plea raised by the appellant as against the order impugned passed by the writ court, the reason would be explained hereunder.

3. At the initial stage of the hearing, the learned Senior standing counsel appearing for the first respondent has raised a preliminary objection as to the maintainability of the writ appeal.

4. Since the learned Senior standing counsel appearing for the first respondents has raised such an objection by citing certain decisions of this Court as well as the Hon'ble Apex Court, we thought of requesting the Additional Solicitor General to assist the Court on the issue as to whether the writ appeal is maintainable or not and a legal position to that regard can be placed before this Court for consideration and appropriate decision.

5. Accordingly, Mr.AR.L.Sundaresan, learned Additional Solicitor General appeared and assisted the Court. We have also heard Mr.K.Gandhikumar, learned counsel appearing for the appellant and Mr.A.P.Srinivas, learned Senior standing counsel appearing for the respondent Department and Mr.K.Srinivasan, learned Special Public Prosecutor (For CBI Cases) appearing for the second respondent.

6. It is the contention of the respondents which was fortified by the submissions made by the learned Additional Solicitor General that, the Intra Court Appeal is not maintainable, for the reason that, the learned single Judge even though having exercised of his power under Article 226 of the Constitution in deciding the writ petition, since it relates to a criminal jurisdiction, the said order passed by the writ court even though under Article 226 of the Constitution cannot be treated to be an appealable order within the meaning of clause 15 of the Letters Patent.

7. In support of their contentions, the learned Additional Solicitor General has relied upon the following decisions :

(i) Ram Kishan Fauji v. State of Haryana, (2017) 5 SCC 533

(ii) Jasbir Singh v. State of Punjab (2022) 13 SCC 462

(iii) C.Shivasankaran v. Foreign Regional Registration officer & Ors, 2020 SCC Online Mad 2656

(iv) Ajay Kumar Bishnoi v. Inspe