Lakhpat Ram
v.
Behari Lal Misir
(Federal Court)
Federal Court Case No. 4 of 1928 | 12-12-1938
1. In this case the applicant, Lakhpat Ram, has applied to the High Court at Patna for a certificate under sec. 205(1) of the Government of India Act, 1935. The High Court have refused to grant the certificate, assigning no reasons for their refusal.
2. Mr. Raghubir Singh now comes before us ex parte and asks for special leave to appeal, or in the alternative for a special certificate, notwithstanding the refusal of a certificate by the High Court. He argues that this Court has jurisdiction to entertain such an application and he puts his case in two ways. He says, first, that if sec. 205 is carefully considered it will be found that the Act itself contemplates the possibility of an application for special leave to appeal in a case of this kind to the Federal Court, and he draws our attention to the concluding words of sub-sec. (2) of the section. It is quite clear that these concluding words only relate to a case where the High Court have already granted a certificate and the appellant is seeking to rely on other grounds for his appeal than the two grounds expressly mentioned in the earlier part of the sub-section. Mr. Raghubir Singh's second point is that this Court has an inherent jurisdiction to grant special leave to appeal in cases where the High Court has refused a certificate, since otherwise, he says, an appellant may suffer grave injustice.
3. This Court being a statutory Court, its jurisdiction must be collected from the terms of the statute which created it; and it is impossible to point to anything in the statute which gives the Court power to entertain an application for special leave to appeal. The first case which was heard before the Court a few, weeks ago, Pashupati Bharti v. The Secretary of State for India in Council*, in effect so decided. That was an application for the exercise of a supposed revisional jurisdiction, and the Court used these words:— “Counsel for the applicant admitted that no right of appeal against the refusal to grant a certificate is given by sec. 205; and he could not well do otherwise.” And then later on:— “To the second point, viz., that the inherent powers of the Court must be held to give it a revisional jurisdiction for the purpose of preventing injustice, there appear to us to be several answers. In the first place, though every Court of superior jurisdiction no doubt possesses inherent powers for certain purposes (of which it is unnecessary, and perhaps would be unwise, to attempt an exhaustive definition), we know of no authority for the proposition that a Court by the exercise of any inherent powers can extend its appellate jurisdiction or increase its revisional authority over other Courts.”
4. We asked Mr. Raghubir Singh if he could cite any authority for the proposition submitted by him and he has been unable to do so. We are satisfied that we have no inherent jurisdiction to entertain an application of this kind, and the application must therefore be dismissed.
Advocates List
Petitioner/Plaintiff/Appellant (s) Advocates
Raghubir Singh, instructed by B. Banerji, Agent for the Applicant.
Respondent/Defendant (s)Advocates
None
For Petitioner
- Shekhar Naphade
- Mahesh Agrawal
- Tarun Dua
For Respondent
- S. Vani
- B. Sunita Rao
- Sushil Kumar Pathak
Bench List
SIR MAURICE GWYERC.J.
SHAH SULAIMAN
JAYAKAR
Eq Citation
(1938-39) 43 CWN 83
(1939) 1 FCR 121
AIR 1939 FC 42
(1939) 49 LW 570
1939 MWN 359
LQ//1938/1
HeadNote
Constitution of India — Arts. 136, 132 and 134 — Special leave to appeal — Inherent jurisdiction — No inherent jurisdiction to grant special leave to appeal — Statutory Court's jurisdiction to be collected from statute creating it — Government of India Act, 1935, S. 205