Chandigarh, February 22
Mr Justice V.K. Bali, whose decision to disagree with the majority opinion in a recent case — Dharambir versus State of Haryana — without recording his reasons for doing had invited anguish from the then Chief Justice, Mr Justice B.K. Roy, has now given his side of the matter.
The issue decided by the Bench was whether the High Court would be within its right in quashing FIR under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure if the parties entered into a compromise and the dispute was settled.
On February 2, when the Full Bench comprising the Chief Justice Roy, Mr Justice V.K. Bali and Mr Justice Amar Dutt was to pronounce the judgement in open court, Chief Justice Roy dictated a note, which said that the practice of disposing of cases and giving reasons later had been depreciated by the Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court 20 years ago.
The Chief Justice had also listed the events leading to the pronouncement of the judgement.
However, Mr Justice Bali, in his 80-page order, has questioned the justification of the anguish expressed by the Chief Justice.
“While dictating the main judgement, I have pondered over the issue time and again so to whether I should make any comment on the note appended by the Chief Justice…. the note appended by Chief Justice has left me with no choice, whatsoever but for to, at least, straighten the facts which would demonstrate for anyone to decide as to whether the anguish expressed by the Chief Justice was justified or not,” he writes.
As per Mr Justice Bali’s order, the matter came up before the Full Bench for the first time on February 20, 2004. On that day, amicus curaie R.S. Cheema sought an adjournment. The next hearing was scheduled for March 23, 2004, but was again adjourned on request.
On April 24, 2004, Mr Cheema made some submissions and then the case was adjourned to allow the amicus time to prepare a reply to the Court’s query about powers of High Court under Article 142.
The next date, May 12, 2004, again saw an adjournment request being made. On the next date, May 19, 2004, after short hearing the judgement was reserved.
Mr Justice Bali says that “there was no interaction after the conclusion of arguments, either with regard to the respective views of the Members of the Bench or with regard to who is to be author of the judgement.”
He adds that during the vacations in October 2004, he was informed that Chief Justice Roy wanted him to write
judgments in matters before Full Court in which he was on the Bench. However, while Mr Justice Bali authored the judgement in one of the cases, as for the judgement in Dharambir versus State of Haryana, he sought re-hearing of the case as a “considerable time had gone”. Mr Justice Bali also says that in his opinion, “arguments had not been heard in the way, at least, I wanted to hear”.
On October 25, 2004, he was informed that Mr Justice Amar Dutt would write the judgement.
He received a copy of the draft judgment on November 8, 2004. The Judge says that the observation of the Chief Justice that the draft judgement had been sent to him several months ago was not correct.
Mr Justice Bali has also countered the stand of Chief Justice Roy (in his note dictated on the day of pronouncement) that arguments in the matter had been heard at length.
He also questions as to how the three cases cited by the Chief Justice in his note — mostly dealing with the issue of delay in delivery of
judgments — related to the issue at hand.
