Can Supreme Court Judgement Be Questioned Or Not?
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This Blog is written by Rashi Aggarwal from Delhi Metropolitan Education, Noida. Edited by Ritika Sharma.
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INTRODUCTION
Whenever a criminal or civil case is filled there is a proper hierarchy that needs to be followed. Supreme Court is the apex court of India, but before reaching the case to that level various other courts are also involved. First, the case is to look after by district court, then by the high court and the last is the Supreme Court.
There are some instances where if needed citizens can directly approach to the high court and Supreme Court as per Article 226 and 32 of Indian Constitution. But this is only possible if there is a breach of a fundamental right of a citizen. In the cases of consumer disputes, the jurisdiction for the case is different from the normal court’s hierarchy. District forum takes the cases which come under Rs 20 lakhs, state forum takes cases which have value more than 20 lakhs and less than 1crore and national forum take cases which have value more than 1 crore.
Supreme Court is the apex court of India has the final decision in every case, but what if parties are not satisfied with the Supreme Court judgment? Or if the decision passed by the court is not fair enough to provide both the parties their rights? Or if citizens want to question the court’s decision? This article will answer all these questions in a detailed manner.
POWERS OF SUPREME COURTS’ JUDGMENT
The judgment made or the decision given by the Supreme Court judge is said to be the final verdict. But in some cases, parties are not convinced with this decision and try to find out other ways to get a judgement to be in their favor. There are various acts that are violent and rigorous done on judges when the citizens when they are not satisfied with Supreme Court judgment.
“no litigant has a right to question the ability, integrity of supreme judge and such acts amount to attack the judiciary” these lines were said by Supreme Court in the case of Vijay Kurle & Ors. Which was a suo muto filled against 3 advocates for putting scandalous allegations on Supreme Court judges. This action leads to 3 months imprisonment with the fine of Rs. 2,000 by each advocate.
Various other Supreme Court judgment powers are-
(1) Power to punish for contempt of court for simple imprisonment of 6 months and fine upto of Rs. 2,000. Civil contempt simply means willful disobedience of judgement and criminal contempt means causing any act which lowers the authority of the court.
(2) To examine the constitutionality of legislative enactments and executive orders.
(3) Deciding authority regarding the elections of president and vice president.
(4) Withdraw cases pending before high court and dispose of them itself.
(5) Appointment of AD HOC judges as per Article 127.
(6) As per Article 137 Supreme Court is empowered to review any judgement or order made by it with a view to removing any error or mistake that might have crept in order.
(7) Supreme Court is a court of record as its decisions are of evidentiary value and cannot be questioned in the court.
CASE ANALYSIS
Background of the case – The basis of contempt are two letters dated 20th march 2019 and 19th march 2019 which were received by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and other Supreme Court judges which was signed by Vijay Kurle and Rashid Khan Pathan. It is also to be noted that of bench judge’s RF Nariman and Vineet saran had already barred Nedumpara from practicing as an advocate in Supreme Court for one year as he made rigorous allegations to the senior judges with his statement. He was referring to the judgment where with the intent to make the exercise of senior designation more objective, fair and transparent so as to give full effect to consideration of merit and ability, standing at the bar and specialized knowledge or exposure in any field of law, the 3-judge bench of Ranjan Gogoi, RF Nariman and Navin Sinha, JJ laid down elaborate guidelines for the system of designation of Senior Advocates in the Supreme Court as well as all the High Courts of India.
Ruling on guilt – On 20th April 2020, in Re; Vijay Kurle & Ors. The court held found all 3 advocates guilty of contempt and held that, “the allegations are scurrilous and scandalous and such allegations cannot be made against the judge of the highest court of India”.
VARIOUS JUDGMENTS ON COURT CONTEMPT
Willful breach of a judgement is a civil contempt – In the case of “Balasubramaniyumm v. P. Janakaraju & Anr.” The Karnataka high court held that the orders of the court to be obeyed until and unless they are set aside in appeal/revision. The court also held that “definition of Civil Contempt includes willful breach of an undertaking given to a Court. Public interest requires that solemn undertakings given to a Court with the intention of obtaining any benefit should not be breached willfully. No litigant can be allowed to wriggle away from a solemn undertaking given to the Court, as it will open dangerous trends and defeat the very purpose of giving undertakings to Court.”
It was further observed that once litigants give an undertaking to the court, they should comply with it in all circumstances, the only exception being fraud or statutory provision. The breach of solemn undertaking is a serious matter and should be taken very seriously.
Courts constitutional right to punish for contempt– (1) Supreme Court in the case of “Bar Association v. Union of India & Anr.” Dwelled into constitutional powers vested in it under Article 129 read with Article 142(2) and the power of high court under Article 215 in constitution and held that “The Apex Court while examining this power remarked that no act of parliament can take away the inherent jurisdiction of the Court of Record to punish for contempt and the Parliament’s power of legislation on the subject cannot, therefore, be so exercised as to stultify the status and dignity of the Supreme Court and/or the High Courts, though such a legislation may serve as a guide for the determination of the nature of punishment which this court may impose in the case of established contempt.”
(2) Supreme Court also in the case of “Sudhakar Prasad v. Government of Andhra Pradesh & ors.” That the provisions of Contempt of Court Act, 1971 are in addition to and not in derogation to Article 129 and 215 of the Constitution. Here, what is new is that High court cannot create or assume power to inflict new type of punishment other than the one recognized and accepted by Section 12 of Contempt of Court Act, 1971.
ANALYSIS
As stated above the article mainly focus on the issue regarding the contempt of court practiced by advocates, judges, lawyers and citizens in various conditions. But, as the main focus of the article was the case of Re: Vijay Kurle & Ors., which talks about the misbehavior of advocates with the Supreme Court judges so the analysis will also focus on the same issue.
Through the case of Re: Vijay Kurle & Ors. It is very much clear about the punishment for lawyers and advocates for misbehaving with the senior and experienced judges of Supreme Court. But, what if judges of both the courts (high court and Supreme Court) are found not serious for their profession and misbehaving with the clients. the framers of constitution mentioned both high court and Supreme Court as the courts of records having power to punish for contempt itself but they never thought the situation will arise where the judges from both the courts would be in a dispute.
Contempt against Justice Karnan the then sitting judge of high court, is an instance where in the Supreme Court didn’t recognize the special status enjoyed by the high court judge as per constitution. During the pendency of suo moto against Justice Karnan Supreme Court order medical examination of judge by order dated 1st may 2017, even though there was no such law which authorized Supreme Court to order such direction. However, the bench of seven judge of Supreme Court by their order sent sitting judge of high court for prison under contempt of court. But the question still remains as the legal issue of high court judge will come under contempt jurisdiction of Supreme Court or not?
CONCLUSION
From the above it is cleared that still there is a lack of proper applicability of contempt laws. As we talk about vijay kurle case, there are instances where freedom of speech and expression is compared with the contempt of court and this is always being a big issue. But, as justice Krishna Iyer has said that freedom of speech and expression is a basic fundamental right which needs to be exercised by everyone and to question the decision of a Supreme Court judge by the citizens is also not wrong, but there needs to be maintained some dignity and authority of the court and also citizen must show some respect to the judgment of the judge and choose respectful manner to make judge understand your point and don’t get violent.
REFERENCES
(2) https://www.scconline.com/blog/