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P. Surendran v. State by Inspector of Police

Special Leave Petition (Criminal) · 2019 INSC 435Decided 29 Mar 2019
Special Leave Petition (Criminal) No. 1832 of 2019
Justice N.V. Ramana · Justice Mohan M. Shantanagoudar

Background

The petitioner was arrayed as an accused in an FIR (originally under IPC provisions including Section 302) to which an offence under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 was later added. After his anticipatory bail application was dismissed by the Sessions Judge in Kancheepuram, he approached the Madras High Court for anticipatory bail, but the High Court's own Registry refused to even register/number the petition, citing the newly-inserted Section 18A of the SC/ST (Amendment) Act, 2018, which bars anticipatory bail under Section 438 CrPC for SC/ST Act offences, as making the petition "not maintainable." The petitioner approached the Supreme Court arguing that a court Registry, which performs only administrative functions, could not itself decide a disputed legal question of maintainability that properly belonged to a judge.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court, with the assistance of the Attorney General for India, held that deciding whether a petition is "maintainable" in light of Section 18A of the SC/ST Act requires judicial application of mind, weighing facts, applying legal rules, and allowing the parties to be heard, which is a judicial function, not a mere administrative act like numbering a case. Since the power to decide judicial questions cannot be delegated to a court's Registry, the Madras High Court Registry had exceeded its authority by refusing, on its own, to register and list the anticipatory bail petition. The Court set aside the Registry's refusal and directed that the petition be numbered and placed before an appropriate bench of the High Court for a proper judicial decision, while expressly leaving open, for that bench to decide, both the merits of the bail plea and the larger question of how far Section 18A restricts anticipatory bail.

Lesson Learnt

A court's administrative registry cannot unilaterally reject or refuse to register a petition by deciding a contested legal question itself (such as whether a law bars the relief sought): that is a judicial function reserved for a judge, and litigants are entitled to have such questions actually heard and decided by a court rather than screened out at the filing desk.

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

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