NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court recently reaffirmed the High Court Chief Justice’s authority to assign cases to the High Court judges and emphasized the need for the judges to operate within their jurisdiction.
A two-judge bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Prashant Kumar Mishra said that the High Court judges cannot convert nomenclature of the petitions before them without the Chief Justice’s approval if the converted petition does not fall within their assigned jurisdiction.
The court made the observation in a case where the Allahabad High Court had dismissed a writ petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India to quash a FIR in a criminal case.
Notably, the writ petition was dismissed by the High Court as infructuous since a chargesheet had been filed and a trial court had taken cognisance of the charges by the time the petition was taken up for hearing.
The petitioners’ counsel argued that the HC could have moulded the relief and converted the petition to one under Article 227 (supervisory jurisdiction of High Court over all courts in an area) to hear the matter. The accused challenged this decision before the Supreme Court. Their counsel, senior advocate S Nagamuthu, argued that the HC still had the discretion to quash the FIR.
Also in top court
Stay on NGT action against local body
The top court has stayed a National Green Tribunal order directing punitive action against the nagar panchayat of Dasna in Ghaziabad district over a damaged sewage treatment plant. A bench said the `23.7 lakh fine be deposited with the top court for the time being.