By Ishrat Husain
Did the Judicial Services Candidates Get Justice To glance into whether any matter in question is inconsistent or in contravention of the fundamental rights of the individuals is an obligation lent on the higher judiciary. ‘Justice delayed, the justice denied’ is a well-known maxim and it may be sometimes supplemented by another connotation that the denial of reasonable opportunity of hearing or summary rejection of a case is also the denial of justice. Parties will have to be heard prior to pronouncement of a judicial order.
‘No one shall be condemned unheard’ is the first principle of natural justice. It is altogether a different matter that one party may not get the judgment in his favour but everyone should have a right to have fair hearing instead of preliminary hearing particularly in the cases of dismissal. A hearing is a legal proceeding where an issue of law or fact is tried and evidence is presented to help determination of the issue.
There is a huge difference between preliminary or hearing for admission and hearing on merit or concluding the hearing. Both are not same. It is difficult to say that summary rejection of a case amounts to concluding the hearing.
When such a distinction is not appreciated at the level of the apex court, one gets hugely disappointed. Few can believe that apex court too at times admits the case and after several years dismisses them in a summary manner. There are a bunch of such cases.
If we take up any particular year to study the cases of summary rejection of SLPs and SLPs turned into Civil Appeals, we find a trend where a majority of cases are dismissed after giving a short time opportunity of hearing ie no real hearing really takes place. It is necessary to differentiate the dismissal on the first hearing and dismissal of cases after following court proceedings for years. If 2013 is taken as a base year for this study, it is found that many of these cases got concluded in 2017, almost after four years and many of them were simply dismissed.
A recent decision of the Supreme Court delivered on March 30, 2017, may be cited right here as an example. It used to be a case of some aspirants of the judgeship in Uttar Pradesh that they could not become the judge, for no fault of theirs, even after their final selection. Interestingly, having qualified the examination they could not become the judge on the one hand, on the other, the court has now said that “you have become overage,” without appreciating the fact that pendency of litigation in the court for so long is not just because of them.
Litigants in all cases cannot be blamed for the delay. It should be realized that when they had approached the court, they were already overage. A Special Leave Petition no.19554 of 2013 titled as Gopalji v.
State of U.P. was filed in 2013. Hon’ble Justice P.
Sathasivam and Justice J. Chelameshwar upon hearing the counsels issued the notice on July 8, 2013. It was the beginning of the case and as usual, the case moved to the Registrar’s Court to complete the pleadings.
Issuance of notice was a ray of hope among many aspirants who had struggled for long in qualifying U.P. Judicial Services Examinations and litigating before the different courts. Resultantly, more than hundred impleadment applications were filed in the said Special Leave Petition.
Counsels of the State were opposing the impleadment applications but thanks to the kindness of Justice J. Chelmeshwar, who rejected their arguments and observed that “they have right to be heard and there should not be any objection in hearing them.” Unfortunately, this judicious and open-hearted view could not be strictly sustained at the later stage. Realist School was right that judgment of the courts depends on the mindset of the judges.
Gray had rightly said that ‘law is what judges say’. One may not entirely agree with him as judges are not supposed to indulge in lawmaking. Their job is merely to interpret laws.
But there is unanimity in all the schools of jurisprudence that the parties should Consumption of time within the court should not go against them or if they are supposed to become overage at the time of filing Special Leave Petition in 2013, in that case, it ought not to have been admitted on the very first day. They should have been asked that you had already become overage and therefore search some alternative job be given a proper opportunity of hearing and judges may decide either way after hearing all parties as ‘justice should not only be done but appear to have been done’. Some say ‘appear to have been done’ is more important Perception Judicial Services than even ‘justice being done’.
Going back to the story. Again, those impleadment applications were mentioned in the court of Chief Justice on January 10, 2014, notably case entered next year i.e. 2014.
The SLP was listed so many times and heard on different occasions and almost a year was spent in the proceedings. August 14, 2015, was the fateful day for the petitioners when all the applications for impleadment were allowed by the Hon’ble Bench of Justice J. Chelmeshwar and Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre.
. The Hon’ble Bench of Justice J. Chelmeshwar and Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre granted leave in all the SLPs and listed the matter for November 23, 2016.
Granting of leave means, as of now to the understanding of laymen, that the petitioners will certainly have the fair opportunity to be heard by the court. Now onwards SLP No. 19554 became Civil Appeal No.
8787/2016 and the appeal was listed for hearing on February 28, 2017. This was the turning point in the history of this case increasing the hope of relief among the petitioners at the cost of another one year as case entered 2017. This was the point where the hope of the petitioners went to the Almost, another one year passed and lastly on September 2, 2016 petitioners were finally heard for permission to appeal sky dreaming that at least they would now be given a fair opportunity to be heard at length after the long battle of four years ie 2013 to 2017.
At last, the day came and to the utter surprise of all concerned on March 30, 2017, the Hon’ble Supreme Court made the following order “We have heard learned counsel for the appellants. We find no reason to interfere with the impugned judgment and order passed by the High Court. All the appellants have crossed the maximum age for recruitment to the post of Civil Judge (Junior Division) and, therefore, to open the entire proceedings that were held in 2004-2005 does not appeal to us.
The appeals are accordingly dismissed. In view of the dismissal of the appeals, applications for impleadment are also dismissed.” Of course, the Hon’ble court heard the case. Was that a real hearing is a big question.
However, the courts are not supposed to give speaking orders in each and every case or in all the SLPs. But, the very fact is that the said SLP with more than were decided as a miscellaneous matter, not as a regular matter. Whether the decision of this SLP with more than hundred impleadment application amount to actual hearing?
A hearing could hardly take place five to eight minutes in the court. Technically, petitioners were heard but perhaps not to the proportionate to the time they consumed in the proceedings since 2013 to 2017. Many of such cases may be cited that show a trend of summary rejection of cases after a wait of years.
For instance, National Insurance Co. Ltd v. Alok R.
Maurya (SLP 18554/2013) registered on 8-5-2013 and disposed of as an Civil Appeal (no.4638/2013) on 14-10 2015. Upon hearing the counsel, the Hon’ble court made the following order. “The appeal is dismissed, in terms of the signed order.
Pending application(s), if any, is /are disposed of. Om Prakash v. State of UP (SLP No.
4866/2013) filed in 2013 and decided on 6-2-2017. Upon hearing the counsel the court made the following order “Permission to file SLP granted. Abatement set aside.
Delay in filing substitution application condoned. Application for substitution is allowed. Delay condoned.
The special leave petitions are dismissed”. Notably, permission to file and dismissal of SLP is in the same order. State of Orissa v.
Prafulla Kumari Das (SLP no. 9798/2013) was filed in 2013 and decided on 3-3-2017. made the following order “we find no reason to entertain this SLP which is, accordingly, dismissed.
Pending applications, if any, stand disposed of. Salim Saddruddin Khoja v. Anand Sopan Kaspate (SLP no.8990 91/2013) was filed in 2013 and decided on 30-1-2017, upon hearing the counsel the court made the following order “learned counsel appearing for the petitioner states that he has filed an application for discharge.
For the reasons stated in the Interlocutory application Nos. 15-16 of 2016 seeking the discharge, the applications are allowed in terms of prayer at clause (a). After carefully perusing the material available on record, we find no reason to interfere with the impugned Order passed by the High Court of Bombay.
Accordingly, the Special Leave Petitions are dismissed on merits. Consequent upon the dismissal of the Special Leave Petitioners, pending applications filed in the matters are also disposed of. Majority of abovementioned SLPs took four to five years in getting just a one-line dismissal order.
granting special leave is of the opinion that the matter is capable of being disposed of within a short time, say, within an hour or two, it will indicate accordingly.. The office shall maintain a separate register of such matters to enable the Chief Justice to constitute a Bench for the disposal of such matters. It is not difficult to imagine the pain if somebody does not get the justice.
But it is equally painful to feel when even hearing is not up to the satisfaction of petitioners. On the one hand, it is a difficult task for the The bench merely observed that all the applicants had crossed the maximum age but it could not appreciate the fact that they were before the court as no other option was left to them due to overage. If they had not become overage they would not have been before the court.
An appeal is always heard as a matter courts to satisfy each and every petitioner against the state, on the other, litigation is a difficult and extremely costly business in India. It is hoped that court will either not admit matter or once admitted will provide full, reasonable and fair hearing to litigants. of right in the realm of law.
It is worthwhile to mention Order 16(12) of the Supreme Court Rules,1966, which says that while granting Special Leave in all matters in which the Bench Technically, if anybody says that hearing took place, it cannot be argued that how hearing should take place before the Hon’ble Courts.