New
Delhi:
Judicial discipline or propriety demands respect to the order passed by
coordinate bench, the Supreme Court said on Monday while terming as “absolutely
unwarranted” the observations made by the Uttarakhand High Court on an order
passed by the Allahabad High Court.
The
top court set aside the November 2019 order of the Uttarakhand High Court which
had dismissed a petition observing that a coordinate bench of Allahabad High
Court was not justified in permitting the appellants to withdraw the plea with
liberty to file fresh petition before the appropriate court.
“The
single judge of the High Court of Uttarakhand was not acting as an appellate
court against the judicial order passed by the High Court of Allahabad
permitting the appellants to withdraw the writ petition with liberty to file a
writ petition before an appropriate court,” a bench of justices MR Shah and
Aniruddha Bose said in its verdict.
“Judicial
discipline/propriety demand to respect the order passed by the coordinate bench
and more particularly the judicial order passed by the coordinate bench of the
high court, in the present case the Allahabad High Court which as such was not
under challenge before it,” the top court noted.
The
bench was hearing a plea against the order passed by the Uttarakhand High
Court.
The
matter relates to an industrial dispute challenging the termination of an
employee in June 1996.
The
labour court at Dehradun, had passed an award in May 1997 holding that the
termination order was illegal and directed reinstatement with full back wages.
The
matter then reached the Allahabad High Court which passed a conditional interim
order staying the execution of award and on condition to deposit the entire
back wages before the labour court.
The
amount of back wages was deposited but during the pendency of the matter, the
state of Uttarakhand came to be created and jurisdiction of labour court,
Dehradun came within Uttarakhand.
The
top court noted in its verdict that in view of section 35 of the Uttar Pradesh
Reorganization Act 2000, the proceedings pending before the Allahabad High
Court were required to be transferred to the Uttarakhand High Court.
The
bench noted the matter was initially not transferred by the Chief Justice of
the Allahabad High Court “for whatever reason” and later in April 2014, the
high court was of the view that since the award has been passed by labour court
at Dehradun, the jurisdiction does not lie with the Allahabad High Court.
It
permitted the petitioner to withdraw the plea with liberty to file fresh
petition before the appropriate court.
Thereafter,
a plea was filed in the Uttarakhand High Court challenging the award passed by
the labour court at Dehradun.
In
November 2019, the Uttarakhand High Court dismissed the petition without
entering into the merits of the case on the ground that in view of the relevant
provisions of the Uttar Pradesh Reorganization Act 2000, the power to transfer
the case lie with the Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court.
The
top court said that in the present case, the appropriate court would be the
Uttarakhand High Court and no error was committed by the Allahabad High Court
in permitting the appellants to withdraw the pending petition with liberty to
file a fresh plea before the court having jurisdiction.
“Therefore,
the observations made by the High Court of Uttarakhand in the impugned order on
the judicial order passed by the single judge of Allahabad High Court dated
April 24, 2014 permitting the appellants to withdraw the writ petition pending
before it with liberty to file fresh writ petition before the appropriate court
(the High Court of Uttarakhand) is absolutely unwarranted and is unsustainable,”
it said.
The
bench set aside the order of the Uttarakhand High Court and directed that the
petition be restored on the file.
It
requested the high court to decide the matter, preferably within a period of
six months, considering the fact that the dispute is very old.
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