The Supreme Court has observed that it is impermissible for the High Courts to exercise their supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227 of the Constitution to interfere with the subordinate Courts' findings on merits.
“It is well settled that in exercise of such jurisdiction, it would not be open for the High Court to review or reassess the material that was taken into consideration by the Court while passing the impugned order.”, observed a bench of Justice J.K. Maheshwari and Justice Atul S. Chandurkar, while setting aside the Bombay High Court's judgment which had interfered with the Appellate Court's decision to allow the Appellant to amend the suit for eviction.
An amendment to the suit for eviction was sought by the Appellant (landlord's son), to include an additional ground of eviction on the bonafide need, based on a subsequent event unfolded after the death of his father, who had originally instituted the eviction suit taking a ground for bonafide need for himself and family members.
While the trial court refused to allow the appellant's leave to seek amendment to the plaint, the Appellate Court allowed the amendment to the suit, prompting the tenant to move to the High Court under Article 227.The High Court interfered with the Appellate Court findings by entering into merits of the case by acting as an Appellate Court and reassessed and re-examined the Appellate Court's decision, leading to an appeal before the Supreme Court.
Allowing the appeal, the judgment authored by Justice Chandurkar emphatically noted that instead of restricting its jurisdiction to see if the sub-ordinate court had exceeded in its jurisdiction while deciding a case, the High Court erred in exercising its supervisory jurisdiction to act as an Appellate Court to re-assess the sub-ordinate Court's order on merits.
Since, the power of the Appellate Court to allow the amendment to the suit is not disputed in terms of Order VI Rule XVII of CPC, therefore it was not open for the High Court to act as an Appellate Court while exercising the supervisory jurisdiction to reassess the lower court's findings on merits.
Reference was drawn from the case Raj Kumar Bhatia Vs. Subhash Chander Bhatia 2017 INSC 1240, where it was held that “Article 227 is confined only to see whether an inferior court or tribunal has proceeded within the parameters of its jurisdiction....the High Court does not act as an appellate court or tribunal and it is not open to it to review or reassess the evidence upon which the inferior court or tribunal has passed an order.”In terms of the aforesaid, the appeal was allowed.
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