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Time to set up Courts of Appeal

In the past week, the Supreme Court has dealt with bail pleas of 1984 anti-Sikh riots case convict Sajjan Kumar and fodder scam convict Lalu Prasad, petition seeking increase in random checking of VVPAT slips, issue of electoral bonds, biopic on PM Modi, Saradha chit fund scam, matrimonial cruelty against women, admissibility of certain leaked documents in the Rafale case, shadow ban on satirical film ‘Bhobishyoter Bhoot’ in West Bengal, assets case against Mulayam Singh Yadav and his sons, contempt plea against Rahul Gandhi and hundreds of less important matters of ordinary citizens.

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By Satya Prakash

In the past week, the Supreme Court has dealt with bail pleas of 1984 anti-Sikh riots case convict Sajjan Kumar and fodder scam convict Lalu Prasad, petition seeking increase in random checking of VVPAT slips, issue of electoral bonds, biopic on PM Modi, Saradha chit fund scam, matrimonial cruelty against women, admissibility of certain leaked documents in the Rafale case, shadow ban on satirical film ‘Bhobishyoter Bhoot’ in West Bengal, assets case against Mulayam Singh Yadav and his sons, contempt plea against Rahul Gandhi and hundreds of less important matters of ordinary citizens.

Amid all this, the Supreme Court Collegium headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi also managed to find time to recommend elevation of Chief Justices of Jharkhand and Gauhati High Courts to the Supreme Court, besides clearing names of five judges for appointment as Chief Justices of Rajasthan, Kerala, Meghalaya, Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh High Courts.

By any standard, it was a normal week for the country’s highest court which is arguably the most powerful court in the world. Its jurisdiction is wider than that of any Federal Supreme Court. It has original jurisdiction in disputes between the Union and the states, between the states inter se and original jurisdiction under Article 32 of the Constitution for the protection of fundamental rights.

It is the highest court of civil and criminal appeal and has overriding powers to grant special leave to appeal from any judgment, decree, determination, sentence or order in any cause or matter passed or made by any court or tribunal in India. Besides, it has advisory jurisdiction under Article 143 of the Constitution.

Today, an activist Supreme Court decides all sorts of issues ranging from rent dispute to maintenance and child custody to frivolous PILs on various issues. In the process, the constitutional determination of vital questions having far-reaching implications for economy, polity and society takes a back seat. There are dozens of Constitution Bench matters pending in the top court.

Should India have a system of Courts of Appeal which would hear all these types of matters, leaving the Supreme Court to deal with constitutional matters only?

In its election manifesto released earlier this month, the Congress said it intended to amend the Constitution to make the Supreme Court a Constitutional Court that would hear and decide cases involving the interpretation of the Constitution and other cases of legal significance or national importance. 

It called for the establishment of Courts of Appeal which would sit in multiple Benches of three judges each in six locations to hear appeals from judgments and orders of High Courts.

The idea of setting up Courts of Appeal and to restrict the Supreme Court to Constitutional matters and matters of national or public importance is not new. 

Attorney General KK Venugopal had suggested it almost a decade ago in a lecture delivered in the capital. The system of Court of Appeal is already there in South Africa and Canada where the Supreme Court decides only Constitutional matters.

The Law Commission had in 2009 recommended setting up of four zonal Benches and a permanent Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court to make it accessible to people living in remote areas.

The Commission had said the zonal Benches at Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai or Hyderabad would be called Cassation Courts (Court of last resort). The zonal Benches would hear appeals arising out of the orders/judgments of High Courts of the particular region, while the Constitution Bench in New Delhi would deal with important Constitutional issues and inter-state disputes, it had suggested.

Reports of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Law and Justice has repeatedly suggested that in order to promote speedy justice to the common man, Benches of the Supreme Court have to be established in the southern, western and North-Eastern parts of the country.

While the Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected the suggestion to set up zonal Benches to maintain its institutional integrity, the idea of Courts of Appeal is worth considering, given the problem of burgeoning judicial backlog. As on April 1, 2019, there were 58,072 cases pending in the Supreme Court, which is more than 85 times of the 680 cases in 1950.

This is despite the fact that the number of judges in the Supreme Court has been increased from seven in 1950 to 10 in 1956, 13 in 1960, 17 in 1977 and 25 in 1986 and 31 including the Chief Justice of India in 2009.

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