New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday sought response from the Centre and the Ministry of Law on the issue of establishment of a National Court of Appeal with regional benches in major cities to finally decide cases arising from high courts.
The PIL petitioner submitted that distance of the apex court in national capital from other parts of the country coupled with high travel expense and cost of litigation were coming in way of citizens from far flung areas to approach the top court of the land which is otherwise also burdened with large scale pendency of cases.
"In this petition, issue of positive nature has been raised. We are issuing notices to respondents (Centre, Legislative Department and Justice Department) seeking for early consideration on representation (by petitioner) made on November 21, 2013," a bench of Chief Justice P Sathasivam and Justice Ranjan Gogoi said while seeking their reply within four weeks.
The court was hearing a PIL filed by Puducherry-based advocate V Vasantha Kumar seeking direction for the Centre and departments concerned to consider his November 21, 2013 representation for consideration and implementation of the suggestions made by the apex court in a 1986 judgement to establish a National Court of Appeal with regional benches in major cities.
He referred to the observation in the judgement of Bihar Legal Support Society Versus Chief Justice of India in which the suggestion was made for the National Court of Appeal.
He submitted that the geographical proximity and financial status of citizens in the society are vital factors for every citizen to have access to top court of the land and referred to media reports that of all the cases filed in the Supreme Court, the highest number are from high courts in the northern states -- 12 per cent from Delhi, 8.9 per cent from Punjab and Haryana, 7 per cent from Uttarakhand, 4.3 per cent from Himachal Pradesh, etc.
The lowest figures are from the southern high courts - Kerala 2.5 per cent, Andhra Pradesh 2.8 per cent, and 1.1 per cent from Madras High Court, the petition said.
The advocate said that despite the recommendation of the Law Commission of India in its 229th report that four cassation benches be set up in the northern region, the southern region, the eastern region and the western region to deal with all appellate work arising out of orders/judgements of the high courts of the particular region, the request for a bench of the Supreme Court in south India has not materialised till now.
Coming to the practicalities and hardships, the advocate submitted that establishment of a "National Court of Appeal" as suggested in the case of Bihar Legal Support Society would rectify the inequality state of affairs inasmuch as the said National Court of Appeal would have benches in all possible regions of the country.
"This would considerably reduce the cost of litigation and would enable the litigants to have the services of the lawyer who appeared for them before the high court.
"It is needless to point out that, while taking up matters on appeal by way of Special Leave Petition (SLP) or approaching this court straightaway under Article 32, people from different parts of the country have to travel for nearly four days, stay at Delhi for a long time for briefing the advocate on record and the senior counsel and also to attend the hearings, in their own interest by spending huge amounts," the petition said.
Further, it said "There are cases where, due to fear of high cost many of the cases are left unchallenged. Further, the fees chargeable by the senior advocates on daily basis are beyond the reach of the normal litigants."
The advocate said the National Court of Appeal would help in absorbing cases which are pending in the Supreme Court.
The petition said the chartered high courts themselves could well be the seats of these courts of appeal which would be manned by judges of the same stature as the judges who would otherwise be elevated from the high courts to the Supreme Court or half of the judges of the apex court may be transferred to the National Courts of Appeal.
"The Supreme Court would then be left with only those cases which would fall within the true jurisdiction of the apex court of the country, except if the National Court of Appeal infers that a particular case deserves to be decided by the Supreme Court and cases in which already leave was granted by the high court under Article 134A of the Constitution of India," it said.
"The National Court of Appeal would finally decide all cases arising from the high courts and it would exercise the powers which are hitherto being exercised by the Supreme Court under Article 136 of the Constitution of India.
"The Supreme Court would entertain appeal from the high court restricting the scope of Article 136 to cases involving constitutional issues, validity of central and state laws, difference of opinion between the high courts or between the courts of appeal and presidential references and suits between the states or states and the Centre and writ petitions under Article 32 of the Constitution," the petition said.
