Special Leave Petition Civil Nos
9945 10550 8857 of 1979
From the Judgments and Orders dated 23 7 1979 25 9 1979 and 18 7 1979 of the Allahabad High Court in Civil Revision Nos
3832 78 204279  26476
Manoj Swarup for the Petitioner in SLP Nos
9945  8857
Pramod Swarup for the Petitioners in SLP No 10550
N N Sharma for the Respondent No 1 in SLP No 9945
A K Srivastava for Respondents Nos
1 2 in SLP No 10550
Mohan Behari Lal for Respondent Nos 1 in SLP No 8857
The Order of the Court was delivered by KRISHNA IYER J
These petitions for special leave deserve to be dismissed because the Full Bench judgment of the Allahabad High Court which is challenged in all the three has been rightly decided in our view
Even so a speaking order has become necessary because as rightly pointed out by counsel the earlier decision of this Court in Vishesh Kumar vs Shanti Prasad does not specifically cover the precise point that has been raised before us by counsel for the petitioner
We are concerned with the ambit and impact of section 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure Uttar Pradesh Amendment Act 1978 for short the Act which forbids a revision under section 115 of the Civil Procedure Code acronymically the CPC to the High Court from a judgment or order in appeal by the District Court where the suit out of which the case arises is not one of the value of Rs 20000 and above
975 We have in Vishesh Kumar vs Shanti Prasad supra considered the scheme setting and purpose of the UP Amendment to the Civil Procedure Code bearing on the revisory power of the High Court under section 115 CPC
We may quote A schematic analysis of the judicial hierarchy within a State indicates that the High Court as the apex court in the hierarchy has been entrusted not only with the supreme appellate power exercised within the State but also by virtue of section 115 the power to remove in order to prevent a miscarriage of justice any jurisdictional error committed by a subordinate court in those cases where the error cannot be corrected by resort to its appellate jurisdiction
The two salient features of revisional jurisdiction under section 115 are on the one hand the closely limited grounds on which the court is permitted to interfere and on the other the wide expanse of discretion available to the court when it decides to interfere in making an appropriate order
The intent is that so serious an error as one of jurisdiction if committed by a subordinate court should not remain uncorrected and should be removed and record healed of the infirmity by an order shaped to reinstate the proceeding within the proper jurisdictional confines of the subordinate court
xx xx xx From its inception there was increasing resort to the revisional jurisdiction of the High Court under section 115
Over the years the volume of litigation reached an insupportable point in the pending docket of the Court
To alleviate the burden a pattern of decentralisation of revisional power was adopted and section 115 was amended by successive State amendments each attempting to close the gap left by its predecessors
Many times amendments were made by the UP Legislature to effectuate its determined purpose of dichotomising and decentralising the revisional jurisdiction a goal which is laudable and which other States may well regard as a paradigm
The crucial provision section 3 of the Act reads thus 115
The High Court in cases arising out of original suits or other proceedings of the value of twenty thousand rupees and above including such suits or other proceedings instituted before Aug 1 1978 and the District Court in any 976 other case including a case arising out of an original suit or other proceedings instituted before such date may call for the record of any case which has been decided by any court subordinate to such High Court or District Court as the case may be and in which no appeal lies thereto and if such subordinate court appears a to have exercised a jurisdiction not vested in it by law or b to have failed to exercise a jurisdiction so vested or c to have acted in the exercise of its jurisdiction illegally or with material irregularity the High Court or the District Court as the case may be may make such order in the case as it thinks fit
Provided that in respect of cases arising out of original suits or other proceedings of any valuation decided by the District Court the High Court alone shall be competent to make an order under this section
Provided further that the High Court or the District Court shall not under this section vary or reverse any order including an order deciding an issue made in the course of a suit or other proceeding except where i the order if so varied or reversed would finally dispose of the suit or other proceeding or ii the order if allowed to stand would occasion a failure of justice or cause irreparable injury to the party against whom it was made
Explanation In this section the expression any case which has been decided  includes any other deciding an issue in the course of a suit or other proceeding
The bulk of the cases we disposed of in the earlier round turned on the tenability of a revision upon a revision a product of legal ingenuity by which the attempt of the legislature to save the little litigant from the logistics of justice from the distant High Court by confining lesser revisions to the District Court was metamorphosed into a dual revision one at the District Court level and the other at the High Court against the District Court s order in revision
Value free legalistics can be counter productive acrobatics  When that happened the Legislature stepped in again and again and we are concerned with the import and impact of section 3 of the Act vis a vis 977 appellate orders of District Courts where the suits from which they stem are less than Rs 20000 in value
A brief analysis of that provision is contained in Vishesh Kumar supra 4
From 1st August 1978 Finally section 3 Code of Civil Procedure Uttar Pradesh Amendment Act 1978 which was deemed to have come into force on 1st August 1978 amended s115 again and restored the bifurcation of revisional jurisdiction between the High Court and the District Court
Accordingly now i The High Court alone had jurisdiction under s115 in cases arising out of original suits or other proceedings of the value of Rs 20000 and above including such suits or other proceedings instituted before 1st August 1978 ii The District Court alone has jurisdiction under s115 in any other case including a case arising out of an original suits or other proceedings instituted before 1st August 1978 iiiThe High Court has jurisdiction under s115 in respect of cases arising out of original suits or other proceedings of any valuation decided by the District Court iv A revision proceeding pending immediately before 1st August 1978 of the nature in which a District Court could exercise revisional power under s115 as amended by the Amendment Act 1978 if pending a in the District Court would be decided by that court as if the Amendment Act of 1978 were in force at all material times b in the High Court would be decided by the High Court as if the Amendment Act of 1978 had not come into force
The provision now before us is slightly different although the purpose and the result are the same
The scheme is clear
The High Court has revisory power only in cases arising out of original suits or other proceedings of the value of twenty thousand rupees and above including such suits or other proceedings instituted before Aug1 1978
The entire residuary area belongs to the District Court
An 978 other test of revisional jurisdiction for the High Court is to see whether the first proviso applies Provided that in respect of cases arising out of original suits or other proceedings of any valuation decided by the District Court the High Court alone shall be competent to make an order under this section
The High Court in the last Full Bench decision traced the story of the race between the legislature and judicial interpretation and summed up the result rightly thus  The High Court was confined to cases arising out of original suits or other proceedings of the value of Rupees 20000 or above including such suits or other proceedings instituted before 1st August 1978
The jurisdiction of the District Court was in respect of any other case including a case arising out of an appeal suit or other proceeding instituted before such date
The legislature has continued to use the phrase cases arising out of original suits
The interpretation placed upon this phrase by the Full Bench in Har Prasad Singh s case AIR 1973 All 390 will apply
The revisional jurisdiction would hence not extend to cases arising out of the disposal of appeals or revisions by the District Court
The proviso is also in the same terms as the proviso added in 1973 namely it uses the phrase cases arising out of original suits or other proceedings
As already seen it will not cover cases arising out of disposal of appeals or revisions
The words or other proceedings in the phrase cases arising out of original suits or other proceedings refer to proceedings of final nature
These words have been added in order to bring within the purview of the revisional jurisdiction orders passed in proceedings of an original nature which are not of the nature of suits like arbitration proceedings
This phrase cannot include decisions of appeals or revisions because then the legislature will be deemed to have contradicted itself
The words or other proceedings have to be read ejusdem generis with the words original suits
They will not include appeals or revisions
The phrase in any other case used with reference to the District Court will refer to cases arising out of original 979 suits of the value of less than Rs 20000 and also cases arising out of other proceedings of an original nature of a valuation below Rs 20000 
Ordinarily when a State legislation is being interpreted the meaning received by it in the High Court as the settled intent should rarely be disturbed by this Court unless the error is so egregious the impact goes beyond the State or like legislation elsewhere and decisions of the High Courts thereon may lead to confusion and uncertainty
Here no such consideration arises and the reasoning of the High Court strikes us as sound
The residuary power is with the District Court
The High Court has no revisional power under section 115 unless the case arises out of an original suit or other proceeding ie other original proceeding decided by the District Court or where the case arises from a suit of and above Rs 20000 in value
If the District Court has decided not in its original jurisdiction then the case be it a revisional or appellate order is not amenable to the High Court s revisional jurisdiction
Of course if the case arises out of suits or other proceeding of the value of Rs 20000 and above the High Court has revisory power
All other cases fall outside and become final at the District Court level
After all our District Courts are easier of access for litigants and the High Courts especially in large States like Uttar Pradesh are untouchable  and unapproachable  for agrestic populations and even urban middle classes
Nor is there ground to distrust the District Judges
A hierarchy of courts built upon a heritage of disbelief in inferiors has an imperial flavour
If we suspect a Munsif and put a District Judge over him for every thing he does if we distrust a District Judge and vest the High Court with pervasive supervision if we be skeptical about the High Courts and watch meticulously over all their orders the System will break down as its morale will crack up
A psychic communicable disease of suspicion skepticism and servility cannot make for the health of the judicial system
If the Supreme Court has a super Supreme Court above it who knows how many of its verdicts will survive judging by the frequency with which it differs from itself
Schematically we are satisfied that decisions of District Courts rendered in appeal or revision are beyond revision by the High Court if the suit is of less than Rs 20000 
But an exception has been engrafted by the first proviso to s3 to the effect that where an origi 980 nal decision has been made by a District Court the High Court s appellate or revisional power will come into play
That is at as it should be for one appeal or revision is almost universal
But otherwise the District Court s decision is immune to revisional probe by the High Court
Lexically there is no escape from section 3 because the whole residue except where the High Court has been expressly vested with revisory power is beyond reach under section 115 CPC Precedentially the result is no different as the Full Bench of the High Court has been at pains to make out
Purposively speaking it will be stultifying to interpret section 3 to mean that orders in appeal by District Courts must suffer a distant journey to revisory justice from the High Court
Thus we reach the convergent conclusion of no revision to the High Court viewing the text of section 3 lexically literally schematically and in the setting of social justice of which saving the average litigant from the intoxication of tantalising litigation is a component
The short test to refuse revisory jurisdiction to the High Court is to ascertain whether the decision sought to be challenged is in a case arising out of a suit of the valuation of Rs 20000 and more
If the answer is yes  then the High Court has revisory power but if the suit from which the case arises and in which the decision is made is one where the valuation is less than Rs 20000 then the litigation cannot travel beyond the District Court except in that class of cases where the decision is taken for the first time by the District Court itself in a case arising out of an original proceeding
From this angle none of the Special Leave Petitions survive
Special Leave Petition No 9945 of 1979 is a case where the District Judge disposed of an appeal and the revision to the High Court was directed against the appellate order
The subject matter of the suit being below Rs 20000 in valuation the High Court was right in refusing to exercise any revisional power
Special Leave Petition No 10550 of 1979 falls in the same category and must be dismissed
The result in Special Leave Petition No 8857 of 1979 is equally fatal and for the same lethal reason
Before we part with the case we may make a general observation in the hope that it may have value as legislative guidance
Democracy in a vast country of diversity demographic immensity logistic difficulty and large scale indigency makes decentralisation and imperative of Administration
Access to Justice also implies early finality within reach of the rich and the poor
These considerations per 981 suaded the UP State one of the direst in poverty largest in population and most agrestic in life style to attempt a tepid procedural reform in the field of revision to the High Court in litigations of lesser financial stakes
Judicial reform is upto now a tinkering exercise not an engineering project but even that little tinkering is fiercely challenged as litigative anathema by the profession which is unfortunate
SR Petitions dismissed


Summary:
HELD 1
Ordinarily when a State Legislation is being interpreted the meaning received by it in the High Court as the settled intent should rarely be disturbed by the Supreme Court unless the error is so egregious the impact goes beyond the State or like legislation elsewhere and decisions of the High Courts thereon may lead to confusion and uncertainty
979 A B 2
Viewing the text of Section 3 lexically literally schematically and in the setting of social justice of which saving the average litigant from the intoxication of tantalising litigation is component No revision to the High Court would be the only conclusion
Purposively speaking it will be stultifying to interpret section 3 to mean that orders in appeal by District Courts must suffer a distant journey to revisory justice from the High Court
980 C D Vishesh Kumar vs Shanti Prasad  clarified
The short test to refuse revisory jurisdiction to the High Court is to ascertain whether the decision sought to be challenged is in a case arising out of a suit of the valuation of Rs 20000 and more
If the answer is Yes  then the High Court has revisory power but if the suit from which the case arises and in which the decision is made is one where the valuation is less than Rs 20000 then the litigation cannot travel beyond the District Court except in that class of cases where the decision is taken for the first time by the District Court itself in a case arising out of an original proceeding
From this angle none of the Special Leave Petitions survive
980 D F After all our District Courts are easier of access for litigants and the High Courts especially in large States like Uttar Pradesh are untouchable  and unapproachable  for agrestic populations and even urban middle classes
Nor is there ground to distrust the District Judges
A hierarchy of courts built upon a heritage of disbelief in inferiors has an imperial flavour
If we suspect a Munsif and put a District Judge over him for everything he does if we distrust a district Judge and vest the High Court with pervasive supervision if we be skeptical about the High Courts and watch meticulously over all their orders the System will break down as its morale will crack up
A psychic communicable disease of suspicion skepticism and servility cannot make for the health of the 974 judicial system
If the Supreme Court has a super Supreme Court above it it is doubtful whether many of its verdicts will survive judging by the frequency with which it differs from itself
979 E G Observation Democracy in a vast country of diversity demographic immensity logistic difficulty and large scale indigency makes decentralisation an imperative of Administration
Access to Justice also implies early finality within reach of the rich and the poor
These considerations persuaded the UP State one of direst in poverty largest in population and most agrestic in life style to attempt a tepid procedural reform in the field of revision to the High Court in litigations of lesser financial stakes
Judicial reform is upto now a tinkering exercise not an engineering project but even that little tinkering is fiercely challenged as litigative anathema by the profession which is unfortunate
980 G H 981 A B