‘CJI-led Bench to resolve conflict over judgments

‘CJI-led Bench to resolve conflict over judgments

Context:

• Amid a conflict over “judicial discipline” within the Supreme Court in connection with certain land acquisition cases, a five-judge Bench led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra sets to resolve the conflict.

Background:

• 2014: In 2014, three judges of the Supreme Court had ruled that the government’s acquiring land could be considered void if the money had not been deposited into the accounts of the landowners.
• This ruling helped people who had refused to surrender their land and refused to accept the compensation amount.
• 2018: But on February 8, 2018 a three-judge bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra reversed this verdict.
• This set of three judges decided that it was enough for the government to offer the compensation and it did not matter if the landowner refused to accept the money.
• This judgment had declared the previous 2014 verdict as per incuriam — that is, delivered without care for the law or facts.
• The Supreme Court has asked all high courts across the country to put off decisions in land acquisition disputes on the basis of these judgments till the matter was sorted out by March 7th, 2018.

Judicial discipline:

• If a judgment is wrong, there is a method of reference to a larger bench and this is the practice being followed over the years.
• This procedure needs a conscious judicial discipline.
• But this judicial discipline has not been followed (by the Justice Arun Mishra bench).
• If it wants to correct an earlier judgment, it should be done by the larger bench to make it (the judgment) as the last word.