Relook at decided case would amount to intra-court appeal: SC

De novo (afresh) hearing of a case already decided by a larger bench of the Supreme Court would amount to an intra-court appeal which is "permissible" neither under the Constitution nor any existing law, a two-judge bench has ruled.

A seemingly peculiar situation has emerged by virtue of a clarificatory order passed by a division bench of Justices J Chelameswar and A M Sapre in a case related to the Vyapam scam.

A three-judge bench headed by Justice J S Khehar had sought a clarification as to whether it can hear the entire matter afresh or confine itself to the quantum of sentence to be awarded to 634 medical students who were found guilty of having adopted unfair means while taking the entrance test conducted by Vyavsaik Pariksha Mandal (Vyapam).
 

"We completely fail to understand the reference made to Article 145(5) of the Constitution in the Order dated July 28, 2016.

"We are of the opinion that neither the Constitution of India nor any other law of this country provides an intra-court appeal insofar as the Supreme Court is concerned. A re-hearing of the entire matter as apparently suggested to the larger Bench, in our opinion, would amount to an intra-court appeal," the two-judge bench clarified.

Seeking clarification, the three judge bench had earlier said, "We are of the view that the instant issue can be resolved by referring the matter back to the bench for a clarification of the order dated May 12, 2016, whether the reference required re-hearing of the entire matter, and if not, the limited issue referred for consideration."

The two judge bench had found 634 medical students guilty of adopting unfair means in their entrance tests but had differed on quantum of sentence, leading the matter to be referred to a larger bench by Chief Justice T S Thakur.

Responding to the order of the three judge bench which also comprises Justices Kurian Joseph and Arun Mishra, the two-judge bench said, "If the larger Bench of this court wishes to create such an intra-court appeal, we obviously are powerless to stop it. We can only record our understanding of the law on the question...".

The two-judge bench had on August 24 reserved its order in view of clarification sought by the larger bench.

Earlier, Justice Chelameswar, who headed the two-judge bench had on May 12 wanted the students to serve as doctors for five years in the army before being granted licence to practise as doctors, Justice Sapre had ordered them to take the entrance test afresh.