Can A Judicial Or Quasi-Judicial Authority Be Impleaded In An Appeal Against Its Order? Supreme Court Clarifies
The Supreme Court, in a recent judgment, considered the issue whether a judicial or quasi-judicial authority can be impleaded in an appeal against its order.
The Court clarified that a judicial or quasi-judicial authority cannot be impleaded in an appeal against its order if the order was issued solely in exercise of its “adjudicatory function,” while the same authority can be impleaded if the order was issued in exercise of its regulatory role.
The Court was considering the maintainability of appeals filed by the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) under Section 31 of the Airport Economic Regulatory Authority of India Act, 2008 (AERA Act) challenging the judgments of the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT)
A Bench of Chief Justice Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, Justice J B Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra noted,
a. An authority (either a judicial or quasi-judicial authority) must not be impleaded in an appeal against its order if the order was issued solely in exercise of its “adjudicatory function”;
b. An authority must be impleaded as a respondent in the appeal against its order if it was issued in exercise of its regulatory role since the authority would have a vital interest in ensuring the protection of public interest; and
c. An authority may be impleaded as a respondent in the appeal against its order where its presence is necessary for the effective adjudication of the appeal in view of its domain expertise.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and Attorney General Venkataramani represented the appellant, while Senior Advocates K.K. Venugopal and A.M. Singhvi appeared for the respondents.
In this judgment, the Court also discussed the test for determining an ‘adjudicatory function’.
"One of the factors to determine if an order was issued in exercise of an adjudicatory function, is whether it was specific to an individual or of general application. The second is that it is not necessary that a legislative action must always be ‘subjective’ and an adjudicatory function ‘objective’.", the Court said.
The Court also explained why a judicial or quasi-judicial authority which are discharging adjudicatory functions must not be impleaded as a party to an appeal against its order.
"The first reason is that with the impleadment of the judicial or quasi-judicial authorities as respondents, they will be required to justify their decision before the Appellate Court. This is contrary to the established principle that Judges only speak through their judgments. Any dilution of this principle would lead to a situation where every judicial authority would be called upon to justify their decisions in the Court of appeal. This would break down the entire edifice of the judicial system", it said.
Cause Title: Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India v. Delhi International Airport Ltd. & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2024 INSC 791)
Appearance:
Appellant: Solicitor General Tushar Mehta; Attorney General Venkataramani; ASG N. Venkataraman; Senior Advocates Prashanto Chandra and Sajan Poovayya; Advocates Buddy Ranganadhan, Kartikay Agarwal, Darshita Sethia, Kunal Tandon, Shweta Bharti, Mahesh Agarwal, Ankur Saigal, et al; AOR Ritesh Kumar, Amit Pawan, E.C. Agrawala, et al
Respondents: Senior Advocates K.K. Venugopal, A.M. Singhvi, Arvind Datar, Sajan Poovayya, Maninder Singh; Advocates Hemant Sahai, Sanjanthi Sajan Poovayya, Rishi Agrawala, Amrita Narayan, Milanka Chaudhary, Srishti Widge, Ankur Talwar, Manu Krishnan, Aanchal Mullick, et al; AOR Sahil Tagotra, Mohit D. Ram, Amit Pawan, et al