By Rana Ajit, IANS
New Delhi : Petitioners normally plead, pray or even argue. But rarely do they sermonise to the Supreme Court using its own rulings as Goa Chief Minister Digambar Kamat has done in his application on the issue of the disqualification of two legislators.
Seeking dismissal of the petition by two Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) legislators and a direction that they should approach the high court before approaching the apex court, Kamat has virtually ended up preaching to the country’s top judges.
In his affidavit to the bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, the chief minister has dwelt at length on the ills of entertaining petitions “devoid of merits” and cautioning them about the mounting backlog of cases.
He has even stated that directly entertaining petitions from one and all would be undermining the people’s faith in high courts and other lower rungs of judiciary.
Interestingly, while sermonising to the apex court, Kamat has not used a single word of his own. He has made his point through an old Supreme Court judgment.
“Though quoting old apex court rulings in one’s petition or during arguments is a routine thing, the way Kamat has quoted the ruling in his affidavit is quite interesting and novel. He simply sounds like he is preaching to the court,” said veteran apex court lawyer B.B. Iyer.
Kamat quotes a 1989 ruling of the apex court to say: “If the Supreme Court takes upon itself to do everything which even the high courts can do, this (Supreme) Court will not be able to do, what it alone can do under various constitutional provisions, which confers exclusive power on it.”
“There is no reason to assume that the concerned high court will not do justice and this court alone can do justice,” he says, seeking dismissal of the petition by two Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) legislators, Pandurang Dhavilkar and Ramkishna Dhavilkar.
“If this court entertains petitions by parties, who approach this court directly instead of first approaching the high court, tens of thousands of petitions would be instituted here directly,” Kamat cautions.
He goes on: “As it is, more than 10 years old cases are sobbing for attention and it will occasion great misery to tens of thousands of litigants if the seriousness of this aspect is not sufficiently realised.”
The Supreme Court has been able to reduce its huge backlog of over 200,000 cases in the late 1980s to 43,580 cases now.
Kamat, who recently survived a no-confidence vote, uses the judgment to make another point: “Again it is as important to do justice at this level as to inspire confidence in the litigants that justice will be meted out to them at the high court level and other levels as well.”