The Supreme Court on Thursday, finding it “unnecessary” to go into the appeal as to whether an offence lies against an MD of a multinational ITES firm under Karnataka Shops and Establishment Act, instead admonished a fellow judge for going beyond and issuing directions "in excess of what is required or relevant for the case".“The subject matter of an appeal, whether civil or criminal, is the correctness of the decision of the courts below. There is no question of the appellate court traveling beyond and making observations alien to the case”, warned a three-judge bench presided over by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan. Making this as one of the rare cases, where a larger bench of the apex court ticks off a fellow judge, the CJI virtually reminded Justice Markandeya Katju in this case that, “any interpretation of a law or a judgment, by this court, is a law declared by this court. When this court renders judgments, it does so with great care and responsibility”.The bench comprising Justices R V Raveendran and J M Panchal also said: “The wider the power, more onerous is the responsibility to ensure that nothing is stated or directed in excess of what is required or relevant for the case”.Forcing the larger bench to issue an implicit directive for judges — “restrict only to the case in hand” — were the two concurring yet different judgments pronounced by Justices H K Sema and Justice Katju on January 29, 2008. Although both the judges agreed to sending back the complaint against Som Mittal, an MD of HP Global Soft Ltd, to the trial court for deciding whether complaint against him could be maintained, however disagreed on the observation by one of them in saying that power under Section 482 CrPC (powers to quash a complaint/ FIR) should be used in “rarest of rare cases”. Mittal had come to the court asking for quashing of a complaint against him for alleged violation of Section 25 under the Karnataka Act, which prohibits employment of women during night shifts, except in cases where exemptions are given with certain conditions.Justice Sema, who took the “rarest of rare” view unlike Justice Katju referred the matter to the CJI. Justice Katju, who felt on his part went much beyond this observation and asked the State of UP to restore the anticipatory bail provision. Simultaneously, he also issued a uniform directive to all the states and UTs for complying with a 1993 apex court ruling while making any arrests.Making it clear that "directions" by Justice Katju that did not have concurrence of other judge are "not directions to be complied with", the CJI pointed to the obvious difficulty associated with writing a “judgment within a judgment”. Asserting the onerous responsibility judges have while delivering verdicts, the Chief Justice strongly asked them “to ensure that court's orders and decisions do not create any doubt or confusion in regard to a legal position in the minds of the authority or citizens, and also to ensure that they do not conflict with any other decision or law.”
