NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday objected to the rare yet unusual practice of judges dictating an order in open court and later changing it in their chamber behind the back of litigating parties and said such an act generated "unhealthy suspicion" in the minds of litigants.
"An order dictated in court and later changed in chamber is bound to generate unhealthy suspicion in the mind of the litigant on whom the change is adverse. This should never, never happen," a bench of Justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana P Desai said."If a judge wants to make material changes in the order, then the least expected of him is to list the matter again in open court, inform the parties about the reason for which he wanted to reconsider the matter and after hearing both sides can modify his earlier order," the bench said.
In most instances, such practice - an order dictated in open court getting changed in the chamber -- goes unchallenged as the order modified behind the back of the litigants is the only one which gets uploaded on to the concerned court's website and of which a certified copy is given to the litigants, who thus have no evidence to counter the modification in the open court order.
But an unusual case came to light with two orders passed by the same bench of the Allahabad High Court on the same date in a dispute between UP Housing and Development Board and a firm 'Fast Builders' over allotment of commercial plots. When the case came up for hearing in the apex court, one party produced an order downloaded from the HC's website which was materially different from the certified copy produced by the other.
Confused as to which was the genuine order and to find out whether any party had resorted to forgery to strengthen its case, Justices Alam and Desai asked the HC registrar general to inquire into it and tell which of the orders was genuine.
The registrar general submitted a report to the court saying the certified copy of the order produced by one of the parties was the one found in the court records. While one had ordered payment of interest on a sum, the other order had condoned the interest.
Dissatisfied with the report, the apex court sought a further report from the HC registrar general to solve the riddle behind the two orders on the same day by the same bench, both materially different from each other. The next report of the registrar general dispelled the confusion by explaining that while the order dictated in open court was uploaded on to the HC website, the order after correction in the chamber was kept in the records.
Appalled by the development, Justices Alam and Desai set aside both the orders and referred it to the chief justice of the HC, requesting him to assign the case to a fresh bench, which had not dealt with the case before.
However, the bench did not hide its disappointment at such judicial indiscretion which had every possibility of making people suspicious about the integrity of the judge concerned, consequently sullying the reputation of judiciary.
The bench said a judge can always modify in "very, very rare circumstances" his order dictated in open court by intimating the parties about it. The modification could take place after hearing both sides on the issue, it said.1
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