TN Lawyer seeks establishment of National Court of Appeal to hear certain appeals from High Courts; SC issues notice in PIL

The Supreme Court today issued notice to the Centre in a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Puducherry-based lawyer V Vasanthakumar seeking, amongst other things, the establishment of a National Court of Appeal with regional Benches..According to this report, a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice P Sathasivam and Justice Ranjan Gogoi issued notice observing that the issue raised by the Petitioner is of a “positive nature”..The Petitioner has sought the consideration and implementation of the suggestions of the Supreme Court in the judgment of Bihar Legal Support Society v. Chief Justice of India..Citing the distance of the Supreme Court from the other parts of the country and the difficulties people experience while travelling to Delhi, the Petitioner has sought for direction to the Centre and the concerned departments to consider his earlier representation made in 2013 to implement the Bihar Legal Support’s suggestions..He has submitted that of all the cases filed in the Supreme Court, the highest number are from High Courts in the northern states with 12 per cent from Delhi, 8.9 per cent from Punjab and Haryana, 7 per cent from Uttarakhand and 4.3 per cent from Himachal Pradesh. The figures cited by him from the High Courts in the southern States are – Kerala 2.5 per cent, Andhra Pradesh 2.8 per cent and 1.1 per cent from Madras High Court..Vasanthakumar has also submitted that chartered High Courts could be the seats of the Benches of the Court of Appeal with High Court or Supreme Court judges manning the same. The petition states that,.“The Supreme Court would then be left with only those cases which would fall within the true jurisdiction of the apex court of the country, except if the National Court of Appeal infers that a particular case deserves to be decided by the Supreme Court and cases in which already leave was granted by the High Court under Article 134A of the Constitution of India…..The National Court of Appeal would finally decide all cases arising from the High Courts and it would exercise the powers which are hitherto being exercised by the Supreme Court under Article 136 of the Constitution of India…..The Supreme Court would entertain appeals from the High Courts restricting the scope of Article 136 to cases involving constitutional issues, validity of central and state laws, difference of opinion between the High Courts or between the Courts of Appeal and Presidential references and suits between the States or States and the Centre and writ petitions under Article 32 of the Constitution.”.The Court after hearing the Petitioner proceeded to issue notice to the Centre seeking its reply within four weeks..In an interview with Bar & Bench, Senior Advocate KK Venugopal had also voted for the establishment of Courts of Appeal in 4 different parts of the country to decide appeals from the High Courts.