The Supreme Court recently slammed a party for bypassing the jurisdiction of the division bench of the Orissa High Court and directly challenging the judgment passed by a single-judge in the apex court.
A bench comprising Justice PV Sanjay Kumar and Justice Augustine George Masih said that they are very clear that they cannot allow such procedural bypass. The bench added that if they allow it in this case, they would have to allow it everywhere.
The Supreme Court was hearing an appeal preferred by the Registrar of the Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology against a 2023 order passed by the single-judge of the High Court, which had directed it to consider regularisation of the services of Class IV employees at the University.
Notably, this was not the first round of litigation in the case. Previously, a single-judge in 2021 had directed the appellants to consider regularising the services of the employees. This was challenged by the appellants before a division bench, which remanded the matter to a single-judge for fresh consideration. The single-judge bench on May 3, 2023, ruled against the present appellants.
The appellants directly approached the top court instead of filing an appeal before the division bench. A Bench of Justices PS Narasimha and Aravind Kumar on January 12 this year, had issued notice on the appeal and stayed the contempt proceedings initiated against the appellants for not regularising the services of the respondent employees.
After the matter was taken up on Monday, the Court prima facie expressed its inclination to dismiss the appeal.
Justice Kumar asked Advocate Naveen Kumar if a division bench of the High Court be bypassed and an appeal against judgment of a single-judge directly before the Supreme Court. He noted that this is the second round of litigation and now when the single-judge had ruled against the appellant on merits, he thought to come directly to the top court and not to the division bench of the High Court.
Advocate Kumar responded that the notice was issued by another bench in this matter. To this, Justice Kumar said that this is a different bench and they should have expected the questions. The judge added that it is sad that the earlier bench didn’t record any reasons, but they are very clear.
After Advocate Kumar requested for scheduling the matter after the vacation, the Court ordered the matter to be listed in July. It further directed for the interim protection to the appellants to continue till next hearing.