Gujarat High Court quashes its own single judge order

GANDHINAGAR - A division bench of the Gujarat High Court has quashed and set aside the order of a single judge of its own court terming it as bad in law and passed without jurisdiction.

A single judge bench of Justice R.R. Tripathi had passed an order to include names of 273 people in the voters list for elections to the Jamnagar Agriculture Produce Markets Committee (APMC). Justice Tripathi had directed the election officer to allow them to cast their votes, but the ballots would be kept aside and the result would be subject to the outcome of the petition. Later, it was clarified in another order that the votes could be considered.

In an order made available Tuesday, the division bench of Chief Justice S.J. Mukhopadhaya and Justice K.M. Thaker upheld the argument of counsel Vikram Vaghela for petitioner Mssrs Amrutlal Dilipkumar & Company that the single judge had passed the order which was within the purview of a division bench. He also argued that the order passed was bad in law since it amounted to granting final relief in a pending petition at the interim stage.

The division bench observed that order had the “effect of the relief of final nature at interim stage” and quashed it.

The court observed that the appropriate remedy available was an election petition and therefore the direction should not have been granted. In a previous hearing of the case, the court had questioned the order and considered it to be passed without necessary delegated powers.