Supreme Court: Application Seeking For Hearing Of Review Petition By A Particular HC Judge Has To Be Placed Before Chief Justice Of HC On Administrative Side And Not On Judicial Side

The Supreme Court in the case Suresh G. Ramnani vs Aurelia Ana De Piedade Miranda @ Ariya Alvares observed and stated than an application seeking to assign a review petition to a particular HC judge should be placed before Chief Justice of the High Court and the same should not be dealt on judicial side.
Justice GS Patel, while sitting at the Goa Bench of the Bombay High Court reserved a second appeal for judgment. The judgement was delivered through virtual mode by the Judge while sitting at Bombay wherein allowing the second appeal. Thereafter, a review petition was filled by the respondent which was listed before Justice Nutan D. Sardessai who admitted it. Thus, an application was filled by the other party praying that the review petition be transferred and be placed before Justice G.S. Patel for final disposal. Justice Prithviraj K. Chavan dealt with the application and has rejected the same. The party approached the Apex Court, against the said order.
The bench comprising of Justice Aniruddha Bose and Justice Vikram Nath observed that the bench does not wish to go into the issue of interpreting the Rules in order to hold as to whether the review should be heard by Judge ‘A’ or from any other Judge.
However, the court added that the matter need to have been placed before the Chief Justice on the administrative side rather than that of the order being passed on the judicial side.
Further, the court stated that the proviso to Rule 3(1) of Chapter XXX of the Rules confers this power on the Chief Justice for assigning a particular matter for hearing of the review application to a single Judge where the single Judge concerned was not available for the time being by reason of being on leave or otherwise as aforesaid i.e., where the Single judge had ceased to sit at a particular Bench. Therefore, the Chief Justice, being the master of roster and is being conferred with specific powers for assigning review petitions in given circumstances under the Rules, the learned single Judge ought to have referred the matter to be placed before the Chief Justice and should not have dealt with application dated 16.07.2009.
Accordingly, the court set aside the impugned order.

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