1986 JTR(SC) 467
1987 AIR(SC) 38 ; 1986 CriLR 559 ; 1987 1 Crimes(SC) 1 ; 1987 CrLJ 313 ; 1987 31 DLT 40 ; 1986 JT 884 ; 1986 1 JT 884 ; 1986 MLJ(Cri) 494 ; 1987 PLJR(SC) 12 ; 1987 PLJR(SC) 12 1 ; 1987 RLR 86 ; 1986 2 Scale 848 ; 1986 4 SCC 767 ; 1986 SCC(Cri) 537 ; 1987 1 SCR 295
SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
P.N. BHAGWATI CJI., RANGANATH MISRA, V. KHALID, G.L. OZA, M.M. DUTT, JJ.
Writ Petn. (Crl) No. 540 of 1986, D/-19-11-1986.
Bihar Legal Support Society, New Delhi, Petitioner
versus
Chief Justice of India, another, Respondents.
Act
Referred
:CONSTITUTION OF INDIA : Art.32, Art.136, Art.21
CRIMINAL PROCEDURE CODE : S.238, S.239
(A) The writ petition is entertained under Article 32 of the Constitution read with Article 136, invoking the Supreme Courts extraordinary jurisdiction to grant special leave for bail petitions where a grave miscarriage of justice may be shown. The provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code, particularly Section 238 and Section 239, govern the practice and procedure of such special leave petitions, while Article 21 and Article 32 ensure that the right to life and personal liberty includes access to a fair and expeditious hearing. The Court emphasizes its role as an apex court, not a regular appellate forum, and stresses that its intervention is reserved for exceptional cases involving substantial questions of law or blatant judicial error, consistent with the policy norms evolved under these statutory and constitutional safeguards.
(B) The key legal principles include that the Supreme Court must treat bail and anticipatory bail applications as meritorious matters deserving urgent consideration irrespective of the socio-economic status of the petitioner. The Court is not a court of appeal but may exercise its discretion to interfere only in exceptional cases of grave, blatant, or atrocious miscarriage of justice. The High Court is normally the final arbiter on bail matters, and the Supreme Court should exercise restraint to preserve the hierarchy of courts and manage its docket.
Facts of the case:
A registered public interest litigation body filed a writ petition highlighting that a Bench of the Supreme Court earlier took up the bail applications of two prominent industrialists late at night, and prayed that similar urgency be extended to "small men" whose bail or anticipatory bail petitions are pending. The petitioner relied on the Courts earlier observations emphasizing equal concern for the liberty of all citizens and urged that special leave petitions against bail refusals be treated with the same priority.
Findings of Court:
The Court acknowledged the petitioners concern and reiterated its commitment to protecting the rights of the poor and disadvantaged. However, it clarified that the question of immediate listing is within the administrative domain of the Chief Justice and that the Court cannot issue directions in this regard. It reaffirmed its settled policy not to ordinarily interfere with bail or anticipatory bail orders, reserving special leave intervention for exceptional cases involving substantial legal questions or grave injustice, and noted the need to avoid burdening the apex court with routine appeals.
Issues:
Whether the Supreme Court is bound to give immediate priority to special leave petitions against bail or anticipatory bail filed in the name of poor litigants on par with those filed by influential persons, and whether this Court can or should interfere as a matter of right in such bail orders.
Ratio Decidendi:
The Supreme Court, while recognizing the constitutional duty to protect the liberty of all citizens, held that it is not a regular appellate body and that bail matters are primarily within the domain of the High Court. Special leave jurisdiction under Article 136 is to be exercised only in exceptional circumstances involving substantial legal issues or grave miscarriage of justice, and not as a matter of course, ensuring judicial restraint and the efficient administration of justice.
Result:
The writ petition is dismissed, with the Court declining to issue directions for urgent listing of special leave petitions against bail or anticipatory bail, reaffirming its settled policy of non-interference except in exceptional cases.
(A) The writ petition is entertained under Article 32 of the Constitution read with Article 136, invoking the Supreme Courts extraordinary jurisdiction to grant special leave for bail petitions where a grave miscarriage of justice may be shown. The provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code, particularly Section 238 and Section 239, govern the practice and procedure of such special leave petitions, while Article 21 and Article 32 ensure that the right to life and personal liberty includes access to a fair and expeditious hearing. The Court emphasizes its role as an apex court, not a regular appellate forum, and stresses that its intervention is reserved for exceptional cases involving substantial questions of law or blatant judicial error, consistent with the policy norms evolved under these statutory and constitutional safeguards.
(B) The key legal principles include that the Supreme Court must treat bail and anticipatory bail applications as meritorious matters deserving urgent consideration irrespective of the socio-economic status of the petitioner. The Court is not a court of appeal but may exercise its discretion to interfere only in exceptional cases of grave, blatant, or atrocious miscarriage of justice. The High Court is normally the final arbiter on bail matters, and the Supreme Court should exercise restraint to preserve the hierarchy of courts and manage its docket.
Facts of the case:
A registered public interest litigation body filed a writ petition highlighting that a Bench of the Supreme Court earlier took up the bail applications of two prominent industrialists late at night, and prayed that similar urgency be extended to "small men" whose bail or anticipatory bail petitions are pending. The petitioner relied on the Courts earlier observations emphasizing equal concern for the liberty of all citizens and urged that special leave petitions against bail refusals be treated with the same priority.
Findings of Court:
The Court acknowledged the petitioners concern and reiterated its commitment to protecting the rights of the poor and disadvantaged. However, it clarified that the question of immediate listing is within the administrative domain of the Chief Justice and that the Court cannot issue directions in this regard. It reaffirmed its settled policy not to ordinarily interfere with bail or anticipatory bail orders, reserving special leave intervention for exceptional cases involving substantial legal questions or grave injustice, and noted the need to avoid burdening the apex court with routine appeals.
Issues:
Whether the Supreme Court is bound to give immediate priority to special leave petitions against bail or anticipatory bail filed in the name of poor litigants on par with those filed by influential persons, and whether this Court can or should interfere as a matter of right in such bail orders.
Ratio Decidendi:
The Supreme Court, while recognizing the constitutional duty to protect the liberty of all citizens, held that it is not a regular appellate body and that bail matters are primarily within the domain of the High Court. Special leave jurisdiction under Article 136 is to be exercised only in exceptional circumstances involving substantial legal issues or grave miscarriage of justice, and not as a matter of course, ensuring judicial restraint and the efficient administration of justice.
Result:
The writ petition is dismissed, with the Court declining to issue directions for urgent listing of special leave petitions against bail or anticipatory bail, reaffirming its settled policy of non-interference except in exceptional cases.
JAYA NARAYAN
Judgment
P. N. BHAGWATI, C.J.I. :- This writ petition has been filed by the Bihar Legal Support Society which is a registered Society having as its main aim and objective provision of legal support to the poor and disadvantaged sections of the community with a view to assisting them to fight for their constitutional and legal rights through the process of law. The occasion for filing the writ petition is set out in para 2 where it has been stated that a Bench of this Court sat late at night on 5-9-1986 for considering the bail application of Shri Lalit Mohan Thapar and Shri Shyam Sunder Lal and that the same anxiety which was shown by this Court in taking up the bail application of these two gentlemen must "permeate the attitude and inclination of this Honble Court in all matters where questions relating to the liberty of citizens, high or low, arise" and that the bail applications of "small men" must receive the same importance as the bail applications of "big industrialists". The petitioner, therefore, prays that special leave petitions against orders refusing bail or anticipatory bail should be taken up by this Court immediately in the same manner in which the special leave petition of these two "big industrialists" was taken up by the Court.
2. Now, we may point out that so far as this Court is concerned. the special leave petitions of "small men" are as much entitled to consideration as special leave petitions of "big industrialists". In fact, this Court has always regarded the poor and the disadvantaged as entitled to preferential consideration than the rich and the affluent, the businessmen and the industrialists. The reason is that the weaker sections of Indian humanity have been deprived of justice for long, long years : they have had no access to justice on account of their poverty, ignorance and illiteracy. They are not aware of the rights and benefits conferred upon them by the Constitution and the law. On account of their socially and economically disadvantaged position they lack the capacity to assert their rights and they do not have the material resources with which to enforce their social and economic entitlements and combat exploitation and injustice. The majority of the people of our country are subjected to this denial of access to justice and overtaken by despair and helplessness, they continue to remain victims of an exploitative society where economic power is concentrated in the hands of a few and it is used for perpetuation of domination over large masses of human beings. This Court has always. therefore, regarded it as its duty to come to the rescue of those deprived and vulnerable sections of Indian humanity in order to help them realise their economic and social entitlements and to bring to an end their oppression and exploitation. The strategy of public interest litigation has been evolved by this Court with a view to bringing justice within the easy reach of the poor and the disadvantaged sections of the community. This Court has always shown the greatest concern and anxiety for the welfare of the large masses of people in the country who are living a life of want and destitution, misery and suffering and has become a symbol of the hopes and aspirations of millions of people in the country. It is, therefore. not correct to say that this Court is not giving to the "small men" the same treatment as it is giving to the "big industrialists". In fact, the concern shown to the poor and the disadvantaged is much greater than that shown to the rich and the well-to-do because the latter can on account of their dominant social and economic position and large material resources, resist aggression on their rights where the poor and the deprived just do not have the capacity or the will to resist and fight.
3. The question whether special leave petitions against refusal of bail or anticipatory bail should be listed immediately or not is a question within the administrative jurisdiction of the Chief Justice and we cannot give any direction in that behalf. But, we may point out that every petitioner who files a special leave petition against bail or anticipatory bail has an opportunity of mentioning his case before the learned Chief Justice in his administrative capacity for urgent listing and wherever a case deserves urgent listing, the Chief Justice makes an appropriate order for urgent listing. It may. however. be pointed out that this Court was never intended to be a regular Court of appeal against orders made by the High Court or the Sessions Court or the Magistrates. It was created as an apex Court for the purpose of laying down the law for the entire country and extraordinary jurisdiction for granting special leave was conferred upon it under Art. 136 of the Constitution so that it could interfere whenever it found that law was not correctly enunciated by the lower Courts or tribunals and it was necessary to pronounce the correct law on the subject. This extraordinary jurisdiction could also be availed by the apex Court for the purpose of correcting grave miscarriage of justice, but such cases would be exceptional by their very nature. It is not every case where the apex Court finds that some injustice has been done that it would grant special leave and interfere. That would be converting the apex Court into a regular Court of appeal and moreover, by so doing, the apex Court would soon be reduced to a position where it will find itself unable to remedy any injustice at all on account of the tremendous backlog of cases which is bound to accumulate. We must realise that in the vast majority of cases the High Courts must become final even if they are wrong. The apex Court can also be wrong on occasions but since there is no further appeal, what the apex Court says is final. That is why one American Judge said of the Supreme Court of the United States : We are right because we are final : we are not final because we are right". We must, therefore, reconcile ourselves to the idea that like the apex Court which may be wrong on occasions, the High Court may also be wrong and it is not every error of the High Court which the apex Court can possibly correct. We think it would be desirable to set up a National Court of Appeal which would be in a position to entertain appeals by special leave from the decisions of the High Courts and the Tribunals in the country in civil, criminal, revenue and labour cases and so far as the present apex Court is concerned, it should concern itself only with entertaining cases, involving questions of constitutional law and public law. But until any such policy decision is endorsed by the Government, the apex Court must interfere only in the limited class of cases where there is a substantial question of law involved which needs to be finally laid at rest by the apex Court for the entire country or where there is grave, blatant and atrocious miscarriage of justice. Sometime, we Judges feel that when a case comes before us and we find that injustice has been done, how can we shut our eyes to it. But the answer to this anguished query is that the Judges of the apex Court may not shut their eyes to injustice but they must equally not keep their eyes too wide open, otherwise the apex Court would not be able to perform the high and noble role which it was intended to perform according to the faith of the Constitution makers. It is for this reason that the apex Court has evolved, as a matter of self-discipline, certain norms to guide it in the exercise of its discretion in cases where special leave petition are filed against orders granting or refusing bail or anticipatory bail. These norms have to be articulated in order that the people may know as to what is the judicial policy of the apex Court in entertaining such special leave petitions. That would go a long way towards introducing a measure of certainty in judicial response to such special leave petitions and would also tend to reduce the inflow of such special leave petitions. This was the reason why a Bench of this Court consisting of two of us, viz., the Chief Justice and Justice Ranganath Misra, clearly enunciated in an Order made on 30-10-1985 in special leave petition (criminal) No. 2938 of 1985 that this Court should not "interfere with the orders granting or refusing bail or anticipatory bail" and that "these are matters in which the High Court should normally become the final authority. We reiterate this policy principle laid down by the Bench of this Court and hold that this Court should not ordinarily, save in exceptional cases, interfere with orders granting or refusing bail or anticipatory bail, because these are matters in which the High Court should normally be the final arbiter.
4. The writ petition will stand disposed of in these terms. We appreciate the anxiety and concern shown by the petitioner for the poor and the disadvantaged in bringing this public interest litigation.
Order accordingly.