The fine balance between saving time by weeding out frivolous petitions when cases are piling up and the need to ensure fairness was tested in the Supreme Court on Monday when attorney-general K.K. Venugopal vented his frustration in front of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi.
Venugopal, the top-most law officer of the government, accused the country’s highest judge of dismissing petitions without a proper hearing and asserted it never happened in any other court.
As soon as an appeal from the Rajasthan commercial tax department came up for hearing on Monday, Justice Gogoi, sitting on a bench with Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, had said he would dismiss it.
But Venugopal, appearing for the Rajasthan government, said: “Your Lordships cannot dismiss it. Your Lordships have to hear it…. I must say that there are a large number of courts here (in the Supreme Court) and other courts (in the rest of the country), but only in this court (Chief Justice Gogoi’s) matters are dismissed without being heard.”
Before hearing this case, the Chief Justice’s bench had dismissed three petitions on Monday in a matter of five or six minutes on the ground of frivolity. As many as 56,320 cases are pending in the Supreme Court, which has a working strength of 28 judges against a sanctioned strength of 31 judges. One of Justice Gogoi’s priorities is to clear the backlog.
Replying to Venugopal, Justice Gogoi said the court had already read the file and had nothing to hear further. But Venugopal insisted that it issue a notice to the respondent company.
“People come from faraway places — several thousands of miles — and watch their counsel. They look to this court for justice,” he said. “But your Lordships hear the counsel and say it is ‘dismissed’. This is not the way to deal (with cases). Your Lordships have to completely hear the case.”
The Rajasthan government had appealed against a high court judgment of July 3 that had stayed the imposition of interest on the entry tax deposited by Bharti Hexacom.
The high court had cited how the Supreme Court had in 2015 agreed to examine the constitutional validity of entry taxes while directing companies to deposit 50 per cent of the tax with the respective governments pending the final verdict. The high court noted that the apex court did not mention any interest.
Justice Gogoi sought to dismiss the appeal on the ground that the main matter relating to the constitutional validity of the entry tax was pending before another bench of the top court.
But Venugopal, who appeared to be in a combative mood, said: “If your Lordships had read it, you would have admitted (the petition) straightaway. The issue involves public money…. I don’t understand why your Lordships are not willing to even issue notice in the matter.”
He said such a summary dismissal would set a precedent for the high courts and urged the apex court to keep the case open for consideration at a later stage.
Justice Gogoi relented and said that in the light of the particular facts of the case, the matter was being kept open.
Earlier, among the petitions that were dismissed, one had sought a direction to the Prime Minister and all the chief ministers to submit a monthly report to the apex court on their performances and policy decisions. Another sought to get all official activities in Karnataka done in the Kannada language.
The third petition, moved by advocate Ashwini Upadhyay, sought to ban political parties from accepting cash donations higher than Rs 2,000.
Justice Kaul, the other judge on the bench, noted that Upadhyay filed a public interest litigation (PIL) plea almost daily. “I think we should ban him from filing PILs,” Justice Kaul remarked.
Justice Gogoi too noted that two other petitions moved by Upadhyay were to come up for hearing on Tuesday.
After Venugopal’s outburst, the bench dismissed a petition that sought a direction to the Centre to make Section 375 of the penal code, which deals with rape, applicable to rapes of members of the transgender community too.
Justice Gogoi noted that the provision now applied only to women victims and not when “a man is raped”, so the court had no obligation to extend its application to transgender victims. He said it was up to the government to decide policy matters, and noted that the Law Commission had made certain recommendations on amending the rape law.
KK Venugopal Telegraph file picture