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Arvind Kumar Bhati v. State of Uttar Pradesh

Civil Appeal · 2025 INSC 286Decided 25 Feb 2025
C.A. No.-003234-003234 - 2025 (arising out of SLP(C) No. 9299/2018, with connected SLP(C) No. 2972/2019)
Chief Justice · Justice Sanjay Kumar

Background

A PIL filed against the State of Uttar Pradesh resulted in an Allahabad High Court judgment (09.03.2018) issuing wide-ranging directions to the State on maintenance of hospitals, including strict traffic-management rules for ambulance passage, criminal liability for obstructing ambulances, restrictions on vehicle registration without parking space, and mandatory free food for patients and one attendant. The State appealed, and the Supreme Court had earlier (14.05.2018) stayed several of these directions pending final disposal.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that while the High Court could legitimately intervene on hospital administration issues, several of its directions, such as dictating traffic policing methods, vehicle-registration restrictions tied to parking availability, and imposing criminal liability on private citizens for traffic obstruction: exceeded the bounds of writ jurisdiction because they were essentially policy matters or day-to-day administrative decisions for the Executive, not the judiciary, to decide. The Court confirmed its earlier interim stay and treated the specified directions in paragraph 146 of the High Court judgment as set aside or modified, while leaving it open for the original petitioners to file a fresh, properly-substantiated writ petition if they wished to pursue the underlying concerns.

Lesson Learnt

Courts exercising writ jurisdiction can direct authorities to fix a problem, but cannot micromanage how the executive administers policy or day-to-day governance: that separation of powers boundary limits even well-intentioned judicial directions issued in the public interest.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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