Vacation Bench of Indian Supreme Court

               Vacation Bench of Indian Supreme Court

·        BACKGROUND

During summer as well as winter season, all the courts go on a period of a long break, but courts are not totally closed during these period of time. Supreme Court constitutes Vacation Benches for these breaks so as to complete the backlog of Judgements.

The trend of Vacation Benches and holidays has been adopted from Colonial rule of India, when British Judges were unfit to tolerate the warmth of Indian summers and so as to avoid that heat they use to went back to England for that particular period of time.

·        VACATION BENCH

Vacation Bench of the Supreme Court is basically a special Bench created by the Chief Justice of India in order to hear all the urgent as well as regular cases so as to prevent the backlog.

Criteria for urgent cases, as per the circular of 10^th May 2019

a)      Cases in which the death penalty has been pronounced.

b)     Habeas corpus petitions and those relating to apprehensions of demolition of property.

c)      Dispossession and eviction.

d)     Issues of “general public importance”.

e)      Anticipatory bail and normal bails.

f)       Cases where the jail term ranges from one year to life imprisonment.

g)       Service matters relating to transfers and dismissals.

Normally six Vacation Benches are present in the Supreme Court during Summers, each bench having sittings for six days. These benches can either have one Judge or two Judge, not more than that.

The nature of cases which are heard in these benches are generally related to lease, compensation, elections, academics, land issues etc.

Courts don’t get uniform number of holidays every year, like for instance, in year 2018 the court went on for 44 days of summer break, whereas in year 2017, the Court went for 55 days of summer break.

“The vacation benches are not decided according to seniority but are mostly decided on who is available during that time to hear the cases,” said Hegde.

In year 2018, the Vacation Bench of the Supreme Court included  

                                              I.            Justice A.M. Khanwilkar,

                                            II.            Justice  Navin Sinha

                                         III.            Justice L. Nageswara Rao

                                          IV.            Justice Mohan M. Shantanagoudar

                                            V.            Justice Ashok Bhushan

                                          VI.            Justice A.k.Goel,

                                       VII.            Justice U.U. Lalit and

                                     VIII.            Justice Deepak Gupta

The Vacation Bench of year 2019 comprises of

                                I.            Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi

                              II.            Justice M.R. Shah,

                           III.             Justice Indira Banerjee

                            IV.            Justice Sanjiv Khanna,

                              V.            Justice Arun Mishra,

                            VI.            Justice L. Nageswara Rao,

                         VII.            Justice Indu Malhotra and

                       VIII.            Justice Ajay Rastogi.

·        CURRENT REPORT

The Supreme Court notified it’s yearly Summer vacations from 13^th of May 2019 and also listed the judges who will possess the Vacation Benches for hearing earnest issues during this period of time.

According to the rule of Supreme Court, as mentioned in rule 6 of order 2, The Chief Justice of India has nominated the Vacation Benches for hearing all the urgent and regular cases as follows:-

FIRST PART

§  May 13, 2019 – May 20, 2019.

§  May 21, 2019 – May 24, 2019.

§  May 25, 2019 – May 28, 2019.

SECOND PART

§  May 29, 2019 – May 30, 2019.

§  May 31, 2019 – June 2, 2019.

§  June 3, 2019 – June 5, 3019.

§  June 6, 2019 – June 13, 2019.

Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi was on the bench with Justice M.R. Shah from 25 May to 30 May.

·        BENEFICIAL DECISIONS

a)      In year 1975, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was found to be  guilty of electoral malpractice  according to Justice Jagmohanlal Sinha of the Allahabad High Court and  therefore she was disqualified from Parliament and barred for 6 years from holding any elected post then in the sake of justice She appealed to the Supreme Court but the Supreme Court was on vacation period . Then the Vacation Bench stayed the judgment of Allahabad High Court and permitted Indira Gandhi to attend Parliament, but ruled that she could not participate in the Lok Sabha proceedings or vote as an MP.

b)      In the previous summer excursion, when the Karnataka Assembly results were declared, the choice to invite the BJP by Karnataka Governor was tested by the Congress before the Vacation Bench. The urgent issue was heard on May 18, 2018 and the court passed a between time request to lead a story the following day. The interval request played an important part in setting off events connected with government development. Hence Vacation Benches become noteworthy in significant political cases.

c)       Most recent and popular case of triple talaq which was heard by the Vacation Bench is of year 2017, when the Constitution Bench formed by Chief Justice of India J.S.Khehar held a  six-day hearing on triple talaq . In the month of August, the vacation bench declared the practice of triple talaq unconstitutional by a 3:2 majority .

d)     Recently the case of Saradha Chit Fund Scam Case in which the ex police Commissioner has filed a writ petition for stay of his arrest will be heard during the vacation.