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Deprecation
Deprecation
Law of Precedent
Law of Precedent
The Apex Court deprecated the practice of not following the settled legal proposition and unsettling the legal issues in Dwarikesh Sugar Industries Ltd. v. Prem Heavy Engineering Works (P) Ltd., AIR 1997 SC 2477, observing as under:—
“When a position, in law, is well settled as a result of judicial pronouncement of the Court, it would amount to judicial impropriety to say the least, for the subordinate Courts including the High Courts to ignore the settled decisions and then to pass a judicial order which is clearly contrary to the settled legal position. Such judicial adventurism cannot be permitted and we strongly deprecate the tendency of the subordinate Courts in not applying the settled principles and in passing whimsical orders which necessarily has the effect of granting wrongful and unwarranted relief to one of the parties. It is time that this tendency stops.”
Similar view has been reiterated in State of Punjab v. Satnam Kaur, (2005) 13 SCC 617.
While dealing with a similar issue, the Supreme Court in Tribhovandas Purshottamdas Thakkar v. Ratilal Motilal Patel, AIR 1968 SC 372, observed as under:—
“Precedents which enunciate rules of law form the foundation of administration of justice under our system. It has been held time and again that a single Judge of a High Court is ordinarily bound to accept as correct judgments of
Courts of co-ordinate jurisdiction and of Division Benches and of the Full Benches of his Court and of the Supreme Court. The reason for the rule which makes a precedent binding lies in the desire to secure uniformity and certainty in the law.”
In Sundarjas Kanyalal Bhathija v. The Collector, Thane, Maharashtra, AIR 1990 SC 261, the Supreme Court held as under:—
“One must remember that pursuit of the law, however glamorous it is, has its own limitation on the Bench. In a multi judge Court, the Judges are bound by precedents and procedure. They could use their discretion only when there is no declared principle to be found, no rule and no authority.”
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