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M/s. Brahmaputra Concrete Pipe Industries etc. etc. vs. The Assam State Electricity Board and Others

Not available · 2024 INSC 145Decided 26 Feb 2024
Not available
Justice Aniruddha Bose

Background

The appellant firms had originally sued the Assam State Electricity Board for interest on delayed payments under the Interest on Delayed Payments to Small Scale and Ancillary Industrial Undertakings Act, 1993. Their suits succeeded before the Trial Court but were dismissed by the High Court, and a three-Judge Bench of the Supreme Court dismissed their appeal in 2019, finding no proof that goods were supplied after the Act came into force. Their subsequent review petitions were also dismissed after an open-court hearing. When they then tried to file curative petitions (a rare, last-resort remedy), the Registrar refused even to register them, citing a Supreme Court Rule that applies only when a review petition was dismissed "by circulation" (on papers) rather than after an open-court hearing, which is what had actually happened here.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the Registrar had misapplied Rule 2(1) of Order XLVIII of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013, because that rule's specific procedural requirement does not govern cases where the review petition was dismissed after an open-court hearing (as opposed to dismissal by circulation); the correct course there was for the applicant to seek an exemption from that rule and have the matter placed before the Chamber Judge. The Court therefore set aside the Registrar's order refusing registration. However, rather than sending the matter back for fresh consideration, since years had already passed and the Court had itself examined the original orders and the curative petitions on their merits, it found no genuine case for invoking the curative jurisdiction and declined to entertain the curative petitions, effectively disposing of the matter finally against the appellants.

Lesson Learnt

Even the Supreme Court's own Registry must correctly apply the specific procedural rule that matches the actual facts of a case (open-court dismissal versus dismissal by circulation) before refusing to register a petition; but even when a procedural refusal is technically wrong, the Supreme Court may still decline relief on the merits if the underlying grounds for invoking a rare remedy like a curative petition are not made out.

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

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