The Himachal Pradesh High Court’s ruling was recently overturned by the Supreme Court, which deemed it to be “utterly inexplicable.” Himachal Aluminium and Conductors v. the State of Himachal Pradesh
An appeal by the State of Himachal Pradesh against a decision of the High Court, wherein the court had granted the writ petitions lodged by the respondent under Article 226 of the Constitution, was being heard by a bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Sudhanshu Dhulia.
The respondents had contested the legality of the State government’s reassessment orders.
The assessment that had prompted the appeal before the Supreme Court had been overturned by the High Court.
The highest court remarked that nothing could be inferred from the verdict when the case was brought before it.
“The High Court’s decision is completely illogical. It is impossible to determine from the verdicts the grounds on which the High Court proceeded to grant the petitions and annul the reassessment “declared the supreme court.
Therefore, it overturned the High Court’s decision and instructed the High Court to rehear the case.
The following was one of the sentences from the High Court ruling:
“However, the aforementioned embargo, or prohibition, against the institution of the current writ petition before this Court, whereby annulment(s) of the contested Annexures, is sought, is not rigid or absolute; rather, it holds certain well-explained exceptions, inasmuch as the statutory action, as made by the authority concerned, is evidently ridden with gross and flagrant breaches of statutory norms
- The alternative remedy provided by statute is ineffective and only serves as a formality;
- The relevant statutory authority acting in a manner inconsistent with the applicable statutory requirements
- In instances where the statutory authority disregarded the fundamental rules of judicial process
- When the statutory authority has resorted to citing repealed provisions
- In cases when the statutory authority issued a ruling completely at odds with natural justice principles.
This is the seventh time the Supreme Court has criticised a ruling from the Himachal Pradesh High Court for being unclear and inconsistent.
Because of the judgment’s complicated use of English, a Supreme Court bench composed of Justices Madan Lokur and Deepak Gupta set aside a Himachal Pradesh High Court ruling in April 2017.
When the Supreme Court sent the case back to the High Court to rewrite the verdict, it stated, “We will have to set it aside since one cannot understand this.
Justice Sureshwar Thakur was the author of that ruling as well.
Another instance was a Supreme Court bench made up of Justices AM Sapre and Indu Malhotra who disapproved of the Himachal Pradesh High Court’s use of 60 pages to issue a judgement remanding a case back to the first appellate court in December 2018.
In its ruling after hearing the appeal against the High Court verdict, the Supreme Court stated that “brevity being a virtue, it must be observed as far as feasible while expressing an opinion.”
More recently, in March 2021, the Supreme Court was once more baffled by linguistic difficulties when it was unable to understand an appeals decision from the Himachal Pradesh High Court.
A court of judges DY Chandrachud and MR Shah had stated that the goal of judgements is to explain the foundation and justification for its decision to citizens who seek courts for relief as well as to lawyers.
The Bench had emphasised that court decisions should consequently be written in a language that both attorneys and regular persons who approach courts can understand.
Finally, in January of this year, a bench of Justices KM Joseph and PS Narasimha stated that because the language used in the judgement was unclear, it might be necessary to remand a matter to the High Court with instructions to rewrite the judgement.
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