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State Bank of India and Another vs Ajay Kumar Sood

Civil Appeal · 2022 INSC 833Decided 16 Aug 2022
Civil Appeal No. 5305 of 2022

Background

SBI dismissed the respondent employee in 2013 after a disciplinary enquiry found him guilty of gross misconduct, including disrupting branch operations and misbehaving with the branch manager. The Central Government Industrial Tribunal found the enquiry had violated natural justice but, after fresh evidence was led, held one charge proved and reduced the penalty from dismissal to compulsory retirement. Both the bank and the employee challenged this before the Himachal Pradesh High Court, whose Division Bench affirmed the Tribunal's order in a judgment the Supreme Court, at the notice stage itself, had already flagged as running eighteen pages yet being "incomprehensible."

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court, quoting extensively from the High Court's judgment, found its reasoning genuinely unintelligible and unable to disclose any coherent basis for the decision. Rather than deciding the underlying merits itself, the Court used the occasion to lay down detailed guidance on judgment-writing, urging clear structure (issue, rule, application, conclusion), paragraph numbering, accessible digital formatting, and above all clarity and brevity, drawing on writings of Lord Denning, Lord Neuberger, Justice Corbett and Justice Kirby. It allowed the appeal, set aside the incoherent High Court judgment, and remitted both underlying writ petitions to the High Court for fresh consideration, expressly keeping all the parties' contentions on merits open and asking the High Court to expedite disposal given the dispute traces back to 2013.

Lesson Learnt

A judgment must be clear and reasoned enough for the parties and future readers to actually understand what was decided and why: an incomprehensible judgment can itself be a valid ground for the Supreme Court to set it aside and send the matter back for a fresh, properly reasoned decision.

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

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