Sudipta Chakrobarty & Anr. vs Ranaghat S.D. Hospital & Ors.

Court

Supreme Court of India

Date

15 February 2021

Case No.

Civil Appeal No.9404/2019

Result

Disposed

Bench

Indu Malhotra, Ajay Rastogi

Citation

[2021] 1 S.C.R. 544 : 2021 INSC 89

Headnote

Practice and Procedure: Practice of pronouncing the final operative part of the order without supporting reasons – Undisputedly, the rights of the aggrieved parties are prejudiced if the reasons are not available to them to avail of the legal remedy of approaching the Court where the reasons can be scrutinized – It indeed amounts to defeating the rights of the party aggrieved to challenge the impugned judgment on merits and even the succeeding party is unable to obtain the fruits of success of the litigation – This principle has been restated by the Supreme Court on several occasions wherein delay in delivery of judgments has been observed to be in violation of Art.21 of the Constitution of India – In the instant case, National Commission had passed operative order on 26.04.2019 and its reasoned judgment was passed only after eight months – Direction to the President of the National Commission to look into the matter, and take necessary steps so that this practice is discontinued and the reasoned judgment is passed along with the operative order – In all the matters where reasons are yet to be delivered, it must be ensured that the same are made available to the litigating parties positively within a period of two months. State of Punjab & Ors. v. Jagdev Singh Talwandi 1984

(1) SCC 596 : [1984] 2 SCR 50; Anil Rai v. State of Bihar 2001 (7) SCC 318 : [2001] 1 Suppl. SCR 298; Zahira Habibulla M. Sheikh & Ors. v. State of Gujarat & Ors. AIR 2004 SC 3467; Mangat Ram v. State of Haryana 2008 (7) SCC 96 : [2008] 2 SCR 80;

Ajay Singh & Anr. Etc. v. State of Chhattisgarh & Anr. AIR 201 SC 310 : [2017] 1 SCR 286; Balaji Baliram Mupade & Anr. v. The State of Maharashtra & Ors. (Civil Appeal No. 3564 of 2020 pronounced on 29.10.2020); Oriental Insurance Co. Ltd. v. Zaixhu Xie & Ors. (Civil Appeal No. 4022 of 2020 pronounced on 11.12.2020); SJVNL v. M/s. CCC HIM JV & Anr. (Civil Appeal No. 494 of 2021 pronounced on 12.02.2021) - relied on.

The following Order of the Court was passed: ORDER In the present case, the reasoned order was passed on 20.12.2019 by the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (“National Commission” for short) in C.A. No.9404 of 2019. A fresh civil appeal was filed before this Court being C.A. No.6476 of 2020, which has been dismissed vide Order dated 06.3.2020. This Court had vide Order dated 08.1.2020 directed the Registrar of the National Commission to submit a Report stating the number of cases in which reasoned judgments had not been passed, even though the operative order had been pronounc

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