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Sandeep alias Kala vs Supreme Court of India through Secretary General

Writ Petition (Criminal) · 2022 INSC 835Decided 16 Aug 2022
Writ Petition (Criminal) No. 143 of 2018
Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud · A.S. Bopanna

Background

The petitioner was tried for murder, acquitted by the trial court, but the Punjab and Haryana High Court reversed his acquittal and sentenced him to life imprisonment. His criminal appeal to the Supreme Court was dismissed "in limine" (at a preliminary hearing, without notice to him or reasons recorded) by a three-judge bench in 2014, and a subsequent review petition was also dismissed. He then filed this writ petition under Article 32, arguing that the Supreme Court Rules, after a 1981 amendment deleted certain provisions, unconstitutionally allowed such appeals to be dismissed at a preliminary, ex parte hearing without recording reasons, contrary to an earlier Constitution Bench ruling (Sita Ram v. State of Uttar Pradesh).

Decision Breakdown

The Court traced the history of Rule 15(1) of Order XXI of the 1966 Supreme Court Rules and its 2013 successor, finding that the 1981 deletion was actually intended to implement (not circumvent) the Constitution Bench's guidance in Sita Ram, meaning such appeals should ordinarily not be dismissed without issuing notice, hearing both sides, and recording reasons. The Court held these principles from Sita Ram continue to apply and should guide how the current Rules are followed, even though they were never formally written into the Rules themselves. However, the Court declined to grant the petitioner any personal relief, because his own appeal and review had already been finally dismissed on the judicial side, and Article 32 could not be used to overturn that final decision; he was left free to pursue whatever other legal remedies might exist.

Lesson Learnt

Even where the Supreme Court clarifies that a procedural rule was being wrongly applied, it will not use a later constitutional writ petition to reopen a case that has already reached finality through the normal appellate process: a writ petition cannot function as an indirect second review of a closed criminal appeal.

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

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