"To Do Complete Justice": Supreme Court Says That Its 'Article 142' Power Is An Exception To Doctrine Of Merger & Rule Of Stare Decisis
The Supreme Court recently observed that the extraordinary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution of India is an exception to the doctrine of merger and the rule of stare decisis to do complete justice between the parties.
The Court, relying on the above principle, applied the test laid down in the landmark judgment of the Constitution Bench of 5 Judges in Indore Development Authority v. Manoharlal and others (2020 SC) to the batches of appeals filed by the landowners and gave directions to eight groups of appeals/petitions/applications according to their facts and circumstances, to do complete justice between the parties and public at large.
The Bench of Justice Surya Kant, Dipankar Datta and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan, observed, “However, in the light of the settled propositions on the doctrine of merger and the rule of stare decisis, we respectfully concur with Kunhayammed (supra) and the decisions that have followed the same. We also take notice of the exception carved out by this Court in Kunhayammed (supra), to the effect that the doctrine of merger is not of universal or unlimited application and that the nature of jurisdiction exercised by the superior forum and the content or subject matter of challenge laid or which could have been laid shall have to be kept in view. The exception, in our considered opinion, that has been carved out in Kunhayammed (supra), will only be permissible in the rarest of rare cases and such a deviation can be invoked sparingly only. We, however, hasten to add that among such exceptions, the extraordinary constitutional powers vested in this Court under Article 142 of the Constitution of India, which is to be exercised with a view to do complete justice between the parties, remains unaffected and being an unfettered power, shall always be deemed to be preserved as an exception to the doctrine of merger and the rule of stare decisis.”
ASG Aishwarya Bhati appeared for the Appellant while Senior Advocates Jayant Mehta, Ashish Dholakia, Gopal Sankarnarayanan, Ravinder Sethi, V.K. Singh, D.S. Jain, Dhruv Mehta, Kailash Vasdev, Sanjay Poddar appeared for the Respondents.
The brief facts of the case are that the land acquisition had been initiated to acquire lands of M/s BSK Realtors and the Delhi High Court while relying on Pune Municipal Corporation and Anr. v. Harakchand Misrimal Solanki and Ors. (2014 SC), allowed the writ petition. It was held in Pune Municipal that if any one of the two ingredients of Section 24(2) of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (“2013 Act”) was attracted, i.e., either the physical possession of the land was not taken or the compensation was not paid, the acquisition proceedings under challenge would be deemed to have lapsed.
However, on March 6, 2020, the decision in Pune Municipal Corporation (supra) was overturned by a Constitution Bench of 5 Judges in Indore Development Authority v. Manoharlal and others holding that land acquisition proceedings lapse only when the twin conditions are met, i.e., non-payment of compensation to the landowners together with the failure of the State to take physical possession of the acquired lands.
The matter was filed by GNCTD, observing that the issue requires deeper examination, a Bench of two Hon’ble Judges directed that the matter be placed before a three-judge Bench. Each appeal filed before the Court required separate directions, therefore, the Court categorised the appeals/petitions/applications into 8 groups for ease of reference.
The Court framed four issues for their considerations i.e. “a) Whether the dismissal of a civil appeal preferred by one appellant in the first round operates as res judicata against the other appellant in the second round before us? b)Whether suppression of the first round of litigation by the appellants constitutes a material fact, thereby inviting an outright dismissal of the appeals at the threshold? c) Does the doctrine of merger operate as a bar to entertain the civil appeals in the present case? d) Whether the previous determination of the rights of subsequent purchasers in an inter se dispute precludes the same issue from being reconsidered between the same parties?”
As regards the issue of Res Judicata, the Court held, “The law, as we noticed aforesaid, aptly resolves the first issue. Res judicata, as a technical legal principle, operates to prevent the same parties from relitigating the same issues that have already been conclusively determined by a court. However, it is crucial to note that the previous decision of this Court in the first round would not operate as res judicata to bar a decision on the lead matter and the other appeals; more so, because this rule may not apply hard and fast in situations where larger public interest is at stake. In such cases, a more flexible approach ought to be adopted by courts, recognizing that certain matters transcend individual disputes and have far-reaching public interest implications.”
On the suppression of material facts, the Court said that the concept of suppression or non-disclosure of facts transcends mere concealment; it necessitates the deliberate withholding of material facts—those of such critical import that their absence would render any decision unjust and in the present case they found no compelling reason to dismiss appeals based on prior dismissal of appeals.
On the applicability of the Doctrine of Merger, the Court said, “It is our duty to enable consistency, clarity and coherence and strike a delicate balance through harmonious resolutions regardless of the crisis, chaos and confusion created by inconsistent judicial opinions on section 24(2) of the 2013 Act, making the present batch of lis a sui generis dispute… It is a totally fortuitous and an incidental circumstance that one SLP arising out of the same acquisition may have been converted into a civil appeal and dismissed by this Court but another SLP, again arising out of the same acquisition, either might have been dismissed without granting leave or is still pending. The necessary consequence is that one parcel of land stands acquired and vested in the State free from all encumbrances under the 1894 Act whereas another parcel of adjoining land stands released on account of the acquisition having lapsed under section 24(2) of the 2013 Act.”
The Court further said that the doctrine of merger cannot be applied mechanically in cases where it leads to irreversible consequences and where the public at large has acquired an interest in public infrastructure. In cases of disparity between groups, the Court, under the extraordinary powers given under Article 142 of the Constitution of India, was able to do complete justice between the expropriated landowners, the State and its developing agencies and most importantly the public in general who had acquired a vested right in the public infrastructure projects.
The Court gave various directions to all the groups of landowners, State Authorities and others according to their categories. For Group A and B.1, the Court initiated fresh acquisition proceedings under Section 24(2) of the 2013 Act, for Group B.2, the appeals had been rendered infructuous after applying the law laid down in Indore Development Authority v. Manoharlal and ors. For Group C.1, having twin conditions under Section 24(2) of the 2013 Act having been met, applying the principles laid down in Indore Development Authority v. Manoharlal and ors was unwarranted in this context.
For Groups C.2 and C.3, the Court said, “Since the twin conditions under section 24(2) of the 2013 Act have not been met in these Civil Appeals, the land acquisition proceedings would not lapse following the test laid down in Manoharlal [5- Judge, lapse] (supra). These Civil Appeals are accordingly allowed, the impugned judgments of the High Court in each case are set aside and the acquisition of the landowners’ lands under the 1894 Act is accordingly upheld.”
For Group E, the Court remitted the cases to the High Court for adjudication of facts and law as a fact-finding inquiry was necessary to ascertain compensation. For Group D.1, the cases will be listed separately in July 2024 for adjudication.
Accordingly, the Court disposed of all the civil appeals and miscellaneous applications.
Cause Title: Government of NCT of Delhi v. M/s BSK Realtors LLP & Anr. and others. (Neutral Citation: 2024 INSC 455)
Appearances:
Appellants: ASG Aishwarya Bhati, AORs Nishit Agrawal, Sujeeta Srivastava, Prachi Bajpai, Chandra Prakash, Shalini Chandra, Kedar Nath Tripathy, Ashwani Kumar, Ram Naresh Yadav, M/s Saharya & Co., Soumik Ghosal, Varun Punia, Manika Tripathy, Atul Kumar, Niharika Ahluwalia, Astha Tyagi, Malvika Kapila, Nitin Mishra, Sunieta Ojha, Advocates Poornima Singh, Kanishka Mittal, Shrey Kapoor, Upasna Agrawal, Poornima Singh, Manisha Chava and others
Respondents: Senior Advocates Jayant Mehta, Ashish Dholakia, Gopal Sankarnarayanan, Ravinder Sethi, V.K. Singh, D.S. Jain, Dhruv Mehta, Kailash Vasdev, Sanjay Poddar, AORs Varun Punia, Siddharth Batra, Prithvi Pal, Pramod B. Agarwala, Chandra Bhushan Prasad, Gagan Gupta, Saharya & Co., M/s Vedya Partners, Arvind Kumar Gupta, Mohit Kumar Gupta, Vikas Kumar, Vikas Gupta, Ajay Marwah, Rooh-e-hina Dua, Jagjit Singh Chhabra, M. C. Dhingra, Pankaj Bhagat, Charu Ambwani, T. Mahipal, Mehmood Umar Faruqui, Atul Kumar, Varun Kapur, Rabin Majumder, Bankey Bihari, Rajender Pd. Saxena, Rajiv Ranjan Dwivedi, Rajesh Singh Chauhan, Mukesh Kumar Maroria, Sushma Suri, Kedar Nath Tripathy, Manish Paliwal, Puneet Sharma, Ranjit Kumar Sharma, T. V. S. Raghavendra Sreyas, Kiran Ahlawat, Yashraj Singh Deora, Ravi Bharuka, Rashmi Malhotra, Niharika Ahluwalia, Arvind Kumar Sharma, Sujeeta Srivastava, Smita Maan, Astha Tyagi, Nitin Mishra, Amrish Kumar, Sunieta Ojha, Gurmeet Singh Makker, Sunita Sharma, Shalinder Saini, Jyoti Mendiratta, Rakesh Kumar-I, Arti Singh, Mukul Kumar, Prachi Bajpai, Krishan Kumar, Dr. Rajeev Sharma, Vishwa Pal Singh, Ashwani Kumar, Malvika Kapila, Manika Tripathy, Tarun Johri along with other Advocates.
