Judicial comity over arithmetic

Judicial comity over arithmetic

Subject: Polity

• Context:
• Recently a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court has unanimously held that a judgment delivered by a larger Bench will prevail over the decision of a smaller Bench, irrespective of the number of judges constituting the majority in the larger Bench.
• Mechanism of functioning of benches:
• A vast majority of cases before the Supreme Court are heard and decided by a Bench of two judges called Division Bench or three judge full Bench.
• The bench with an equal number of judges cannot overrule or reconsider a decision of a coordinate bench. It can at best, doubt the correctness of it.
• Further, the doubt and conflict between decisions of co-equal Benches is referred to the Chief Justice of India and which leads to the formation of larger benches.
• The larger Benches examine the question or correctness of the decision and the majority opinion expressed by them becomes the verdict, which is also binding on the lower Benches.
• What is the issue with larger benches:
• A majority decision is treated as the ruling of the entire Benchignoring the opinion of the dissenting judges that examined the question.
• Further, if a larger Bench arrived at a decision by a slim majority then its correctness can be doubted on the presumption that had the Bench comprised different judges, the outcome might have been different.
• What is Doctrine of Precedents:
• The Doctrine of Precedents states that a decision that has already been taken by a higher court is binding to the lower court and it also stands as an example to the lower court judgment which cannot be altered by a lower court.
• How is the Doctrine of Precedents followed in other countries:
• The issue of the precedent is generally avoided in countries like the US and South Africa.
• Whereas, countries like theK. and Australia follow a system similar to that of India but the entire act of reconsidering a precedent is viewed as a delicate and grave judicial responsibility in these countries.
• Recommendation to avoid such conflicts:
• There should be a quorum with a break-even or a greater majoritythan the lower Bench.
• For example, If a five-judge unanimous decision is referred to a larger Bench, it should be considered by a nine-judge Bench rather than seven, so that it would, in any case, be decided by a majority of at least five judges.