Scope of Judicial Review under Article 227 very limited: Allahabad High Court

The Allahabad High Court on Monday reaffirmed that the scope of judicial review is very limited when it comes to High Courts exercising supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227 and the power is to ensure that lower courts and tribunals do not exceed the limits of their authority (Pandit Shubham Mangal @ Shankar Lal v. State of Uttar Pradesh). .The power under Article 227 is to remove manifest and patent errors of law and jurisdiction without acting as an appellate authority, Justice Raj Beer Singh ruled. ."In supervisory jurisdiction of this Court over subordinate Courts, the scope of judicial review is very limited and narrow and even the errors of law cannot be corrected in exercise of such powers. The power enshrined under Article 227 of the Constitution is of judicial superintendence and it cannot be used to upset conclusions of fact, however, erroneous, unless such conclusions are so perverse or unreasonable that no court could have ever reached them," the Court held..The power under Article 227, the Court said, involves a duty on the High Court to keep the inferior courts and tribunals within the bounds of their authority and to see that they do what their duty requires and that they do it in a legal manner.But this power does not vest the High Court with any unlimited prerogative to correct all species of hardship or wrong decisions made within the limits of the jurisdiction of the Court or Tribunal, the Court added. .The petitioner had approached the High Court under Article 227 to set aside two orders which were passed by lower courts at Meerut. One was passed on September 11, 2020 by the Session Judge and the other was passed on April 18, 2018 by the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Meerut..Furthermore, it was contended by the petitioner that his application was recorded under Section 202 and was later 'arbitrarily dismissed'. It was also alleged by the petitioner that they were attacked by the respondents with fire and knife blows..Justice Raj Beer Singh, while referring to various case laws, refused to interfere with the findings of the lower court. "It is well settled that power under Article 227 is of the judicial superintendence which cannot be used to up-set conclusions of facts, however erroneous those may be, unless such conclusions are so perverse or so unreasonable that no Court could ever have reached them," it observed. .Furthermore, the Court noted that though High Courts have a duty to keep the subordinate courts and tribunals within their bounds of jurisdiction, it does not vest the High Courts with any unlimited prerogative to correct all wrong decisions made within the limits of the jurisdiction of the lower court or tribunal."It must be restricted to cases of grave dereliction of duty and flagrant abuse of fundamental principle of law or justice, where grave injustice would be done unless the High Court interferes," the Court said. .In the instant case, the Court noted that no such injury has been shown and it, therefore, proceeded to dismiss the petition upholding the decisions/ observations made by the subordinate court. .[Read Order]