Source: https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1563902/
Timestamp: 2019-01-18 05:28:11
Document Index: 553359163

Matched Legal Cases: ['Application No. 1742', 'Art. 228', 'Art. 136', 'Art. 163', 'Art. 163', 'Art. 136', 'Art. 136']

Sarat Chandra Maiti And Ors. vs Bibhabati Debi And Ors. on 22 August, 1921
Citedby 264 docs - [View All]
Prudence Anthony Maynard And Anr vs Mundhra Container Freight ... on 11 April, 2017
Prudence Maynard vs Mundhra Container Freight ... on 11 April, 2017
Equivalent citations: 1982 AIR 1249, 1983 SCR (1)	8
RAMDAS SHRINIVAS NAYAK & ANR.
DATE OF JUDGMENT28/07/1982
1982 AIR 1249		  1983 SCR  (1)	  8
1982 SCC  (2) 463	  1982 SCALE  (1)554
RF	    1984 SC 684	 (5)
RF	    1988 SC1531	 (143)
R	    1989 SC 129	 (9)
RF	    1991 SC1420	 (62)
Evidence -	 Conclusive proof  of statements recorded in
the judgment  - Any  concession made before the court and as
recorded in  the judgment cannot be resiled later, except in
rare end appropriate case - Stage at which the circumstances
of the	record to  be rectified, explained - Constitution of
India, Article	136 -  Interference by	the  Supreme  Court,
Sanction for  the prosecution  of	the  Chief  Minister
under Section  6 of  the  Prevention  of  Corruption  Act  -
Whether the  Governor should  act in  his discretion or with
the aid	 and advice of the Council of Ministers-Constitution
of India, 1950, Article 163.
HELD:  1:1.  Supreme  Court  is  bound  to	 accept	 the
statement of  the judges  recorded in  their  judgment	and,
therefore, it  cannot launch  into an  inquiry	as  to	what
transpired in  the High Court. It is simply not done. Public
policy bars  such an  action and  judicial decorum restrains
it. [12 C]
1:2. Supreme  Court cannot	 allow the  statement of the
judges to  be contradicted  by statements  at the  Bar or by
affidavit and other evidence. Matters of judicial record are
unquestionable and  not open  to  doubt.  Judges  cannot  be
dragged into the arena. If the judges say in their judgments
that something	was done, said or admitted before them, that
has to	be the	last word  on the  subject. Judges record is
conclusive. [12 C-E]
1:3. If  a party  thinks that  the happenings  in court
have been  wrongly recorded  in a  judgment, it is incumbent
upon the party, while the matter is still fresh in the minds
of the	judges, to call the attention of the very Judges who
have made  the record  to the  fact that  the statement made
with regard  to his  conduct was  a statement  that had been
made in	 error. That  is the  only way	to have	 the  record
corrected. If  no  such	 step  is  taken,  the	matter	must
necessarily end	 there. Of course, a party may resile and an
Appellate Court	 may permit  him, in  rare  and	 appropriate
cases to  resile from  a concession  on the  ground that the
concession was	made on	 a wrong appreciation of the law and
had led	 to gross injustice, but he may not call in question
the very  fact of  making the  concession as recorded in the
judgment. [12 F-H, 13 A]
Rex v. Mellor 7 Cox C.C. 454, quoted with approval.
Madhusudan v.  Chandrawati, A.l.R.	 1917 P.C.  30; King
Emperor v.  Barendra  Kumar  Ghose,  28	 C.W.N.	 170:  Sarat
Chandra v. Bibhabati Debi, 34 Cal. L.J. 302. Samasundaram v.
Subramanian. A.I.R 1926 P.C. 136: approved.
2. In  the facts and circumstances of the present case,
it is  clear that,  when there is to be a prosecution of the
Chief  Minister,   tho	Governor  would,  while	 determining
whether sanction  for such  prosecution should be granted or
not under  section 6 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, as
a matter of propriety, necessarily act in his own discretion
and not on the advice of the Council of Ministers. [14 F-G]
3. In  the instant	 case, the cause of justice would in
no way be advanced by permitting the state of Maharashtra to
now resile  from the  concession so  made. On the other hand
the concession	was rightly  made before  the High  Court to
advance the cause of justice. [15 A]
CRIMINAL APPELLATE	JURISDICTION: Petition	for Special Leave to Appeal (CRL) No. 1523 of 1982.
From the judgment and order dated the 12th April, 1982 of the	Bombay High Court in Criminal Revision Application No. 1742 of 1981.
L.N. Sinha, Attorney General, Dr. Y.S. Chitale,	and Miss A. Subhashini for the petitioner.
Soli J.	Sorabjee and	Miss Rani Jethmalani	for Respondent No. 1.
A.K. Sen and B.R. Handa for Respondent No. 2. The order of the Court was delivered by CHINNAPA REDDY, J. Abdul	Rehman Antulay was the Chief Minister of the State of Maharashtra till January 12, 1982. While he was yet holding the	office of Chief Minister one Ramdas	Shrinivas Nayak, an	erstwhile Member of	the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly, professing a keen interest in clean administration and so keeping a watchful eye on centres	of power and sources of corruption, filed a complaint against Shri Antulay, in	the court of	the Metropolitan Magistrate, 28th Court, Esplanade, Bombay charging him with the	commission of	offences punishable under ss. 161 and 185 of the Indian Penal Code and S of the Prevention 10 of Corruption Act. The substance of the allegation was that Shri Antulay founded and controlled a number of trusts called by various names freely, and falsely making it appear that the Prime Minister and the Government of Maharashtra were either interested or	had sponsored	the trusts, collected contributions and	donations for	the alleged benefit of the Trusts by misuse of his position and power by dispensing favours and holding	out threats, and, thereby placed himself	in a position where he could	juggle	and manipulate a sum of over Rs.	five crores.	The learned Metropolitan Magistrate	refused to enteratain the complaint holding that it was not maintainable without the requisite sanction of the Government under s. 6 of the Prevention of Corruption Act. Against the	order	of the learned Metropolitan Magistrate, R.S. Nayak presented	a Criminal Revision Application to the	High Court of	Maharashtra purporting to be under	ss. 407 and 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and Art. 228 of the Constitution.	The State of Maharashtra and Shri Antulay	were impleaded as Respondents. During the course of the pendency of	the Criminal Revision Application, Shri Antualy resigned	his position as the Chief Minister of the State of Maharashtra. By an elaborate order	dated April 12, 1982,	Gadgil	and Kotwal, JJ upheld the	view that sanction was necessary and dismissed the Revision Application. While dismissing	the application, the learned Judges noticed that an application had been made to the Governor	of Maharashtra for grant of the requisite sanction and observed that the	application should not be decided	by the	Law Minister or any other Minister, but that "it deserved to	be decided by	the Governor in his individual	discretion". The State of Maharashtra though not aggrieved by the dismissal of	the Criminal Revision Application, seeks special leave to appeal to this Court under Art. 136 of the Constitution against the judgment of the High Court of Maharashtra in so far as the judgment may be said to have	directed the	Governor of Maharashtra to	exercise his	individual discretion in deciding the question whether sanction should or should not be granted to prosecute Shri Antulay. The learned Attorney General, who appeared for the State of Maharashtra, raised the contention	that it	was not for the Court to decide whether in respect of	a particular matter, the Governor should act in his discretion or with the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers and that under Art. 163(2), if any question arose whether any matter was or was not a matter as respects which the Governor was by or under the Constitution required to act in his discretion, the decision of the 11 Governor in his discretion was final,	and the validity of anything done by the Governor was not liable to be called in question on the ground	that he ought not to have acted in his discretion.	He also invited our attention to Art. 163 (3) which provides that the question whether any, and if so what, advice was tendered by Ministers to the Governor shall not be inquired into in any Court. The question posed by the learned Attorney General is no doubt an important question, probably worthy of serious consideration by this court under Art. 136 of the Constitution. But, in the present case, we do not	propose to grant special leave under Art. 136 of the Constitution, solely in order	to consider this question firstly because	the Criminal Revision a Application itself has been dismissed by	the High Court and secondly-and this is important-there was an express concession	made in	the High Court by the Respondents that in the situation presented by the facts	of the	present case,	the Governor should act in the exercise of his individual discretion.
Gadgil, J.	referred to the concession in the following words :-
"However, I may observe at this juncture itself that at one stage	it was	expressly submitted by the learned counsel on behalf	of the	respondent that in case if it is felt that bias	is well apparently inherent in the	proposed action of the concerned Ministry, then in such a case situation notwithstanding the other	Ministers not being joined in the arena of the prospective accused, it would be a justified ground for the Governor on his own, independently and without any reference to any Ministry. to decide that question. Kotwal, J. put it even more explicitly and said: "...At one stage it was unequivocally submitted by the learned counsel on behalf of the respondents in no uncertain terms that even in this case notwithstanding there being no accusation	against the Law Minister as such if the court feels that in the nature of things a bias in	favour	of the	respondent and against a complainant would	be manifestly inherent, apparent and implied in the mind of the Law 12 Minister, then in that event, he would not be entitled to consider complainant's application and on the equal footing even the other Ministers may not be qualified to do so and the learned	counsel further expressly submitted that in such an event,	it would only	the Governor,	who on	his own, independently, will be entitled to consider that question."
When we drew the	attention of the learned Attorney General to the concession made before the High Court, Shri A.K. Sen, who appeared	for the State of Maharashtra before the High Court and led the arguments for the respondents there and who appeared for Shri Antulay before us intervened and protested that he	never made any such concession and invited us to peruse the written submissions made by him in the High Court. We are afraid that we cannot launch into an inquiry as to what transpired in the High Court. It is simply not done. Public Policy bars us. Judicial decorum restrains us. Matters of judicial record are unquestionable. They are not open to doubt. Judges cannot be dragged into the arena. "Judgments cannot be treated as mere counters in the game of litigation".(1) We are bound to	accept	the statement of the Judges recorded in their judgment, as to what transpired	in court. We cannot allow the statement of the judges to be contradicted by statements at the Bar or by affidavit and other evidence.	If the	judges say in their judgment that something was done, said or admitted before them, that has to be the last word on the subject.	The principle is well settled that statements of fact as to what transpired at the hearing, recorded in the judgment of the court, are conclusive of the facts so stated and no one can contradict such	statements by	affidavit or other evidence. If a party thinks that the happenings in court have been wrongly recorded in a	judgment, it is incumbent upon the party, while the matter is still fresh in the minds of the judges, to call attention of the very judges who have made the record to the fact that the statement made with regard to his	conduct was a statement that had been made in error. (2) That is the only way to have the record corrected. If no such step is taken, the matter must necessarily end there. Of course a party may resile and an Appellate (I) Per Lord Atkinson in Somasundaran v. Subramanian, A.I.R 1926 P.C. 136.
Court may permit him in rare and appropriate cases to resile from a concession on the ground that the concession was made on a wrong appreciation of the law and had led to gross injustice; but, he may not call in question the very fact of making the concession as recorded in the judgment.
In Rev. Mellor, 7 Cox. P.C. 454 Martin was reported to have said: "we must consider the statement of the learned judge as absolute verity and we ought to take his statement precisely as a record and act on it in the same manner as on a record of Court which of itself implies	an absolute verity".
In Sarat Chandra v. Bibhabati Debi (2)	Sir Asutosh Mookerjee explained what had to be done:
"It is plain that in cases of this character where a litigant	feels	aggrieved by the statement in a judgment that an admission has been made, the	most convenient and satisfactory course to follow, wherever practicable, is to apply to the Judge without delay and ask for rectification or review of the judgment"
So the judges, record is conclusive. Neither lawyer nor litigant may claim to contradict it, except before the judge himself, but nowhere else.
On the invitation of Mr. Sen, we have also perused the written submissions made by him before the High Court. We have two comments to make: First, oral submissions do not always conform	to written submissions. In the course of argument, counsel, often, wisely	and fairly,	make concessions which may not find a place in	the written submissions. Discussion draws out many a concession.
Second, there are some significant sentences in the written submissions which probabilise the concession. They are: "If in the	existing case,	the entire Council of Ministers becomes interested in the use of the statutory power one way or the other, the doctrine of necessity will fill up the gap by enabling the Governor by dispensing with the advice of His Council of Ministers and take a decision of his own on the merits of the case. Such	a discretion of the Governor must be	implied as inherent in his constitutional powers.. The doctrine of necessity will supply the necessary power to the Governor to act without the advice of the Council of Ministers in such a case where the	entire	Council of Ministers is biased. In fact, it will be contrary to the Constitution and the principles of democratic Government which it enshrines if	the Governor was obliged not to act and to	decline to perform his statutory duties because his Ministers had become involved	personally. For the interest of democratic Government and its functioning, the Governor must act in such a case on his own. Otherwise, he	will become an instrument for serving the	personal and selfish interest of his Ministers." We wish to say no more. As we said, we cannot and we will not embark upon an enquiry. We will go by the judges' record.
We may add, there	is nothing before us to think that any such mistake occurred, nor is there any ground taken in the petition for grant	of special leave that	the learned judges proceeded on a mistaken view that the learned counsel had made a concession that there might arise circumstances, under which the Governor in granting sanction to prosecute a Minister must act in his own	discretion and	not on	the advice of the Council	of Ministers. The statement in the judgment that such a concession was made is conclusive and, if we may say	so, the	concession was rightly made. [n the facts and circumstances of the present case, we have no doubt in our mind that when there is to be a prosecution of the Chief Minister, the Governor would, while determining whether sanction for such prosecution should be granted or not under s. 6	of the	Prevention of	Corruption Act, as a matter of propriety, necessarily act in his own discretion and not on the advice of the Council of Ministers.
The question then is whether we should permit the State of Maharashtra to resile from the concession made before the High Court and raise before us the contention now advanced by the	learned Attorney General. We have not the slightest doubt that 15 the cause of justice	would in no way be	advanced by permitting the	State of Maharashtra to now resile from the concession and	agitate the question posed by the learned Attorney General. On the other hand we are satisfied that the concession	was made to advance the cause of justice as it was	rightly thought	that in deciding to sanction or not to sanction the prosecution	of a Chief Minister,	the Governor would act in the exercise of his discretion and not with the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers. The application for grant	of special leave is, therefore, dismissed.
S.R.					 Petition dismissed.