What Supreme Court said on Kerala High Court Division Bench ignoring Coordinate Bench ruling

The Supreme Court on Tuesday took exception to a Kerala High Court Division Bench's decision to not quash a preventive detention order on the basis of a Coordinate Bench's earlier judgment releasing three co-accused in the same case [Shabna Abdulla v The Union of India and others].A Bench of Justices BR Gavai, Prashant Kumar Mishra and KV Viswanathan said the Division Bench could not have ignored the Coordinate Bench's decision which involved the same grounds of detention and material relied on by the detaining authority. "We are of the considered opinion that the Division Bench of the High Court while passing the impugned judgment and order should have followed the view taken by another Division Bench of the same High Court specifically when the grounds of detention and the grounds of challenge were identical in both the cases," the Court said.It added that in case the Division Bench had been of the view that the decision of the Coordinate Bench was not correct in law, it could have referred the matter to a larger Bench..The top court made these observations while allowing appeal against a Kerala High Court judgment related to a detention order passed under Conservation of Foreign Exchange & Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act (COFEPOSA).The Division Bench of Justices Anil K Narendran and PG Ajithkumar had refused to release detainee Abdul Raoof and rejected his argument regarding the non-supply of documents by the detaining authority.It had also distinguished the Nushath Koyamu vs The Union Of India in which a Coordinate Bench had released three co-accused in the same matter after ruling that non-supply of certain documents had vitiated the right to make an effective representation of the detainees..However, the top court today said that the grounds of detention of all the four detainees are almost identical."In the present case also, the detenue had sought the copies of the said WhatsApp chats. However, the Division Bench of the High Court in the present case, while rejecting the case of the detenue, observed that the detaining authority had arrived at a subjective satisfaction on the basis of various documents and that non-supply of the WhatsApp chats would not vitiate the detention order. It, therefore, held that the findings of the Coordinate Bench of the same High Court in the cases of Nushath Koyamu (supra) and other connected matters in respect of other detenus could not be followed in the present case," it noted..While relying on Official Liquidator vs. Dayanand and others in which the top court in 2008 had expressed concern over High Court judges not following the law laid down by the Coordinate Benches over minor differences in the facts, the Court said those observations aptly apply to the facts of the present case. "No doubt that, the second Division Bench has sought to justify its decision by holding that the findings in the cases of Nushath Koyamu (supra) and other connected matters would not be applicable to it since the detaining authority had also taken into consideration the other material while arriving at its subjective satisfaction. However, it is to be noted that if that was so in the case of present detenue, that was also so in the cases of other detenus," it said.Consequently, the Court accepted the appeal and set aside the detention order as well the order of its confirmation by the Central Economic Intelligence Bureau..Senior Advocate Raghenth Basant and advocates Aanchal Tikmani and Kaushitaki Sharma appeared for the detainee.Additional Solicitor General Vikramjit Banerjee and Senior Advocate Nachiketa Joshi appeared for the Central government and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence.Advocates Nishe Rajen Shonker, Anu K Joy, and Alim Anvar appeared for the Kerala Police..[Read Judgment]