Fewer constitutional matters in SC

I attach a news report that appeared in "the Hindu" today(19th January, 2015) on the above subject.The underlying theme of the report seems to be that the legal cases must end at the High Courts unless constitutional issues, especially matters where the validity of the provisions of the constitution are under challenge and where there was a case for relook into the constitutional provisions in the present legal context.
Let us hope that the Bench at the Supreme Court sitting on our Civil appeals will
take into account whatever is revealed in the findings in the study reported.
With greetings,
C H Mahadevan

Fewer constitutional matters in SC

News » National

NEW DELHI, January 19, 2015

Rukmini S

The Hindu

Just 7 per cent of the judgments passed by the Supreme Court last year dealt substantially with Constitutional matters, an analysis of the court’s rulings has shown.

New findings point to growing proportion of routine appeals

Just 7 per cent of the judgments passed by the Supreme Court last year dealt substantially with Constitutional matters, an analysis of the court’s rulings has shown.

The new findings, alongside earlier ones by legal researcher Nick Robinson, point to the growing proportion of routine appeals in the apex court's workload as against core Constitutional matters.

The problem, senior advocate Rajeev Dhawan said, is structural. “I have suggested that the SC’s Benches should be split into three separate divisions — public law, civil law and criminal law,” he said.

Supreme Court advocate K.V. Dhananjay and his team of a dozen lawyers in Delhi and Bangalore analysed 884 of the 888 final judgments by various benches of the SC handed down in 2014. He shared the findings exclusively with The Hindu. In all, 64 judgments fitted the description of dealing with a Constitutional question. Only 14 of these involved a five-judge Bench.

Last year, Mr. Robinson, Research Fellow at Harvard Law School’s Centre on the Legal Profession, in his analysis of 50 years of Supreme Court data, had shown that the number of matters decided by Constitution Benches — comprising five or more judges to hear a substantial question of law — was falling steadily. In the second half of the 2000s, Constitution benches heard an average of 6.4 matters per year, the lowest ever level.

Mr. Robinson also found that despite the SC’s reputation in the public imagination as the arena for public interest litigation, less than 2 per cent of the SC’s admission matters in 2011 were writ petitions. The bulk of the SC’s workload was appeals from the High Courts, known as Special Leave Petitions, which made up 85 per cent of its admission matters. While the proportion of writ petitions has fallen steadily, that of SLPs has risen steadily over time, Mr. Robinson found.

SLPs too might, however, deal with a core Constitutional issue, Mr. Dhananjay’s analysis found. “The Supreme Court is increasingly saying — don’t come to us directly, and go to the High Courts first. The problem is that the standards of High Courts are so bad and uneven,” Mr. Rajeev Dhawan said. “It might take up cases directly as well, and it tends to do so in two major areas — corruption and environment and forests. These are Constitutional matters, but one can argue there are many other Constitutional issues too,” he said.

To isolate “Constitutional matters”, Mr. Dhananjay and his team looked at disputes over the interpretation of a provision of the Constitution, and challenges to a law or executive decision on the grounds that it was inconsistent with a provision of the Constitution. Not all cases that cited a Constitutional provision necessarily involved a Constitutional question, the team determined. As a result, there is an element of subjectivity to the classification, Mr. Dhananjay said.
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Saturday, February 17, 2007

Article 136 Constitution of India - Appeal to Supreme Court - Cannot be filed mechanically

Court not a forum for all and sundry casesIt is meant to hear questions of Constitution or law: BenchAppeals cannot be filed mechanically

CASE NO.:Appeal (crl.) 188 of 2007
N. Suryakala Vs. A. Mohandoss & Ors.
DATE OF JUDGMENT: 12/02/2007
BENCH: S. B. Sinha & Markandey KatjuSource : The Hindu 17th February 2007

• New Delhi: Appeals against High Court orders cannot be filed mechanically. "If the Supreme Court entertains all and sundry cases, it will soon be flooded with a huge amount of backlog and will not be able to deal with important questions relating to the Constitution or the law or where grave injustice has been done, for which it is really meant under the constitutional scheme. After all, the Supreme Court has limited time at its disposal and it cannot be expected to hear every kind of dispute," said a Bench consisting of Justices S.B. Sinha and Markandey Katju.
• It was dismissing an appeal against a Madras High Court verdict. Writing the judgment, Justice Katju said: "Nowadays it has become a practice of filing SLPs against all kinds of orders of the High Court or other authorities without realising the scope of Article 136 of the Constitution. Hence we feel it incumbent on us to reiterate that Article 136 was never meant to be an ordinary forum of appeal at all like Section 96 or even Section 100 Civil Procedure Code." The Bench said, "Article 136 is not a regular forum of appeal at all. It is a residual provision, which enables the Supreme Court to interfere with the judgment or order of any court or tribunal in India in its discretion. The use of the words "in its discretion" clearly indicates that Article 136 does not confer a right of appeal upon any party but merely vests a discretion in the Supreme Court to interfere in exceptional cases."
• The Bench said "this overriding and exceptional power has to be exercised sparingly; only in furtherance of the cause of justice in exceptional cases and only when special circumstances are shown to exist."
• In the instant case, Suryakala preferred an appeal the quashing of a criminal case she instituted against her husband Mohandas for dowry offences after 978 days. "This is not fit case to be entertained in exercise of our discretion under Article 136," the Bench said.

Posted by Diwakar