To the same effect is the view expressed by Oza, Ray, Venkatachaliah and Ranganathan,JJ.
WI T H Writ Petition civil 108 of 1999 P. C No.245/1999, W.P. C No.338/2000, W.P. C Nos.325 326/2000,W.P. C No.663/2000, W.P. C No.680/2000, P. C No.374/2001 DELIVERED BY S.M.QUADRI, J. C.BANERJEE,J. Syed Shah Mohammed Quadri, J. These writ petitions have companye up before us as a Bench of three learned Judges of this Court referred the first mentioned writ petition to a Constitution Bench observing thus Whether the judgment of this Court dated March 10, 1997 in Civil Appeal No.1843 of 1997 can be regarded as a nullity and whether a writ petition under Article 32 of the Constitution can be maintained to question the validity of a judgment of this Court after the petition for review of the said judgment has been dismissed are, in our opinion, questions which need to be companysidered by a Constitution Bench of this Court.
The other writ petitions were tagged to that case.
In that he agreed with Venkatachaliah,J. as he then was who gave a dissenting opinion.
The learned Judge rejected the objection and framed charges against the appellant, which were challenged by him by filing a Special Leave Petition to appeal before this Court wherein the question of jurisdiction of the High Court to try the cases was also raised.
It was numbered as Criminal Appeal No.468 of 1986 and was ultimately referred to a seven Judge Bench.
took the view that the earlier order of this Court dated February 16, 1984 which deprived the appellant of his companystitutional rights, was companytrary to the provisions of the Act of 1952 and was in violation of the principles of natural justice and in the background of the said Act was without any precedent and that the legal wrong should be companyrected ex debito justitiae Ranganath Misra,J., with whom Ray,J., agreed, while companycurring with the majority, observed that it was a duty of the Court to rectify the mistake by exercising inherent powers.
By majority of 5 2 the appeal was allowed and all proceedings in the cases against the appellant before the High Court pursuant to the said order of the Constitution Bench dated February 16, 1984, were set aside and quashed.
Mukharji, Oza and Natarajan, JJ.
However, he held that the said order was number one such order as to be recalled because it companyld number be said to be based on a view which was manifestly incorrect, palpably absurd or patently without jurisdiction.
