Pass speaking orders - Supreme Court tells High Courts
If Supreme Court can pass one line orders, can't High Courts do the same?
A High Court passed an order as follows:
“Heard, Dismissed, reasons to follow”.
The matter is in appeal before the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court referred to some of its earlier orders. More than two decades ago, in State of Punjab v. Jagdev Singh Talwandi , the Court had observed,
1. It is desirable that the final order which the High Court intends to pass should not be announced until a reasoned judgment is ready for pronouncement.
2. Suppose, for example, that a final order without a reasoned judgment is announced by the High Court that a house shall be demolished, or that the custody of a child shall be handed over to one parent as against the order, or that a person accused of a serious charge is acquitted, or that a statute is unconstitutional or, as in the instant case, that a detenu be released from detention.
3. If the object of passing such orders is to ensure speedy compliance with them, that object is more often defeated by the aggrieved party filing a special leave petition in this Court against the order passed by the High Court.
4. That places this Court in a predicament because, without the benefit of the reasoning of the High Court, it is difficult for this Court to allow the bare order to be implemented.
5. The result inevitably is that the operation of the order passed by the High Court has to be stayed pending delivery of the reasoned judgment.
If Supreme Court can pass such one line orders, can't the High Courts do the same?
‘No', said the Supreme Court, because
1. The Supreme Court is the final Court in the hierarchy of our courts.
2. The orders passed by this Court are final and no appeal lies against them.
3. Besides, orders without a reasoned judgment are passed by this Court very rarely, under exceptional circumstances.
4. Orders passed by the High Court are subject to the appellate jurisdiction of this Court.
5. One of the main reasons for disclosing and discussing the grounds in support of a judgment is to enable a higher court to examine the same in case of a challenge.
6. It is, of course, desirable to assign reasons for every order or judgment, but the requirement is not imperative in the case of this Court.
7. It is, therefore, futile to suggest that if this Court has issued an order which apparently seems to be similar to the impugned order, the High Court can also do so
So the matter was remanded to the High Court.
Though, we thought that this judgement need not be covered by us, many netizens called up and asked about the judgement.