The Supreme Court last week strongly disapproved of the practice of disposing of different criminal writ petitions by passing orders of the same format.
“This approach of the High Court only puts a burden on this Court. Thus we cannot appreciate the manner in which the petitions have been disposed of.”
A bench of Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice Manoj Mishra was hearing an appeal against the Uttarakhand High Court’s order refusing to quash the First Information Report. It was brought to the notice of the Supreme Court by Advocate Adil Singh Boparai, counsel for the appellants, that the judge passed ‘mystical and uniform orders’ without considering the peculiar facts of the case and passed 44 identical orders in all.
These orders were passed by the Single Judge of the High Court. Advocate Harsh R. Relying on the case of Kilachand v. State of Uttarakhand (2022), the practice of passing ‘non speaking orders’ by the Uttarakhand High Court without any consideration has already been struck down by the Supreme Court, wherein Justice B.R. Similar orders were criticized by Gavai and Justice Hima Kohli.
The bench headed by Justice Kaul observed that the Single Judge passed the cyclostyle order without going into the merits and merely required the police to follow the guidelines laid down in Arnesh Kumar v. State of Bihar, (2014) 8 SCC 273, with regard to arrest of the accused.
After setting aside the High Court’s order and setting aside the FIR against the appellants on the ground that the ingredients essential to the offenses could not be ascertained “by mere reading of the FIR”, the bench further observed.
“However, we are not inclined to restate the matter, as one of the aspects urged [in the order] is that the writ petition filed by the appellant(s) during the course of argument only Relating to compliance of the decision of this Court in Arnesh Kumar v. State of Bihar (2014) 8 SCC 273. He said petition was disposed of with a direction to the Station House Officer. We have taken note of this controversy. Appellant(s) submitted that this is the nature of the draft order being passed by the Judge and by way of illustration our attention is drawn to such order which resulted in the order of this Court. He says that six such orders came up. It is now said that 44 such orders were passed. The above view of the High Court only puts a burden on this Court. We cannot appreciate the manner in which the petitions have been disposed of.”
Before concluding, the bench cautioned,
“Thus, we are of the view that the order should be placed before the Chief Justice of Uttarakhand High Court to ensure that such situation does not arise in future.”
This is not the first time that this practice of passing similar orders without appreciating the merits of each case has come under scrutiny. In June last year, one of the 44 similar orders passed by the judge was challenged before the Supreme Court, which strongly criticized the “manner in which orders are passed by the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution”.
Court said,
“While passing these orders, the judge did not bother to look into the merits of the case and passed cyclostyled orders.”
The bench had asked the Uttarakhand High Court to “consider” the writ petition on its own merits in accordance with law before restoring it.
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