Sumer Singh Jat & Ors. etc. etc. v. State of Rajasthan & Anr. etc. etc.
Background
The appellants had lost a batch of writ petitions before Single Judges of the Rajasthan High Court (Jaipur and Jodhpur benches) and then filed intra-court ("Special Appeal") appeals before Division Benches, which affirmed the Single Judge orders and dismissed all the appeals across more than a dozen separate orders issued between September 2017 and January 2018. The appellants then approached the Supreme Court by special leave, arguing that the Division Bench orders dismissing their appeals were legally unsustainable. The specific question before the Supreme Court was simply whether those dismissal orders could stand.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court found that none of the Division Bench orders gave any reasons at all for dismissing the appeals: they did not even mention, let alone discuss, any of the submissions the appellants had raised. On that basis the Court held the impugned orders legally unsustainable, allowed the appeals, and set aside all the Division Bench orders. It expressly declined to examine the underlying merits itself, instead restoring each appeal to its original number before the High Court for fresh disposal on merits, uninfluenced by any of the Supreme Court's observations, and requested the High Court to decide them within six months.
Lesson Learnt
An appellate court must actually engage with and give reasons addressing the arguments raised before it: a dismissal order that is silent on the submissions made will be set aside for want of reasoning, regardless of whether the ultimate outcome might otherwise have been correct.