Supreme Court notice on court of appeal

The Supreme Court on Friday issued a notice to the Centre, seeking a response on the plea to make the apex court National Court of Appeal to decide only constitutional issues with four regional benches.

A bench of Chief Justice T.S. Thakur and Justice Uday Lalit after hearing advocates V. Vasanthakumar in person and advocate Ram Sankar sought the assistance of attorney-general Mukul Rohatgi to decide this important issue and also appointed senior advocates K.K. Venugopal and former law minister and senior advocates Salman Khurshid to render assistance in this case.

In his writ petition, Mr Vasanthakumar said his representation to the government was rejected by the Centre, saying such a court is not feasible.

The order dated December 3, 2014 said, “The idea of setting up a separate National Court of Appeal or setting up of benches of the Supreme Court in other parts of the country was taken up by the Central government.”

“The CJI on several occasions in the past and the successive Chief Justices have, however, been consistently opposed to the setting up of such benches. The attorney-general was also consulted in the matter as recommended by the Law Commission in its 229th report and he opined that an amendment to Article 130 is impermissible as this would change the Constitution of the Supreme Court completely.” The petitioner said since the Centre had not considered the representation properly, the order should be set aside.

The petitioner submitted that the SC is a court of appeal for 24 HCs not only in matters involving Constitution but also in civil and criminal matters. The present system of the apex court handling all types of appeals from HCs and other fora, including appeals against interim orders had burdened the poor litigants across the country.

The petitioner quoting an earlier judgment said, “If special leave petitions are entertained against all kinds of orders passed by any court or tribunal, then this apex court after some time will collapse under its own burden.”

He also quoted a 1986 judgment wherein it was stated that by converting the apex court into a regular court of appeal, the SC would soon be reduced to a position where it would find itself unable to remedy any injustice to all on account of the tremendous backlog of cases which was bound to accumulate.

He said that despite the recommendation of the Law Commission of India in its 229th report that four regional benches be set up in the North, South, East and the West to deal with all appellate work arising out of the orders / judgments of the high courts of the particular region, the request for a bench of the Supreme Court in South India has not materialised till now. The petitioner wanted a National Court of Appeal to be set up with regional benches as this would considerably reduce the cost of litigation.