Supervisory Jurisdiction of the High Court of Delhi Over the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission

The importance of the accurate, equitable and rationale conclusion of the titled preposition can be estimated by the number of Appellate Tribunals/appellate judicial forums entrusted with multi-State jurisdiction and are located/chaired/seated in the National Capital Territory of Delhi. The same would determine the burden, pendency and extent of the jurisdiction of the High Court of Delhi as vested by virtue of Article 227 of the Constitution of India¹. As it is a settled position that the power of superintendence conferred on the High Courts by the said article is wider even than the powers conferred by virtue of Article 226² as the same is not confined only to administrative superintendence but also judicial superintendence over all courts and tribunals within its jurisdiction.³

The birth

The journey of the power of superintendence of the High Courts traced back to 15-6-1949 when Article 227 was firstly debated as Draft Article 203⁴ in the Constituent Assembly and it is crucial to point out that Dr B.R. Ambedkar proposed the amendment to insert words “and tribunal” after the words “all courts” as the original Draft Article 203 did not mention those words. The said amendment was supported by the worthy member of the Constituent Assembly i.e. Sh. Shibban Lal Saxena who has taken the reference of his bad experience of the then labour tribunals.⁵ Consequently, the said amendment was fortunately adopted by the Constituent Assembly which resulted in proper checks and balances over the administrative and judicial functioning of not only the District and trial court but also the tribunals.

The nurturing

The Parliament tried to challenge/narrow down the width of the power of the High Court as vested by the Constituent Assembly, by enacting the Constitution (42nd Amendment) Act, 1976⁶ whereby inter alia Part XIV-A has been inserted in the Constitution of India⁷. By way of the said insertion, Article 323-A⁸ (power of Parliament to enact a law for establishment of Administrative Tribunal) and Article 323-B⁹ (power of the appropriate legislature to enact a law for establishment of tribunals for other matter) have been enacted which inter alia vest the power in the Parliament as well as in the appropriate legislature (includes State Legislature) to even oust the jurisdiction of the High Court as provided under Articles 226 and 227. The said power to oust the jurisdiction of the High Court has been tested and answered by 7-Judge Bench of the Supreme Court in L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India¹⁰, whereby the law has been laid down on the issue as to whether the power of judicial review vested in the High Court and in the Supreme Court under Articles 226, 227 and 32¹¹ is part of the basic structure of the Constitution. By taking the reference of the judgments passed in Powers, Privileges and Immunities of State Legislatures, In re¹², Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala¹³, Minerva Mills Ltd. v. Union of India¹⁴, Fertilizer Corpn. Kamgar Union v. Union of India¹⁵ and Delhi Judicial Service Assn. v. State of Gujarat¹⁶, the said issue has been authoritatively answered in affirmative inter alia by holding that the power vested in the High Courts to exercise judicial superintendence over the decisions of all courts and tribunals within their respective jurisdictions is also part of the basic structure of the Constitution. The roots of Article 227 got even stronger than ever before after becoming a part of the basic structure of the Constitution which cannot be amended by the Parliament.

The evolution

Now, after establishment of various tribunals under Articles 323-A, 323-B and other statutes including their Appellate Tribunals, the constitutional question faced by many High Court is that on what basis the jurisdiction of the High Court shall be decided in a case when an Appellate Tribunal exercises jurisdiction over the territory of more than one State. Therefore, it was gigantic need of the hour to decide how the jurisdiction shall be determined, whether on the basis of the doctrine of the dominus litus or the situs of the Appellate Tribunal or the cause of action.

A similar question came up before the Supreme Court in Ambica Industries v. CCE¹⁷, whereby the jurisdiction of the High Court is to be determined in case the appeal has been filed before the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (Cestat) which then exercises jurisdiction in respect of the cases arising within the territorial limits of the State of Uttar Pradesh, National Capital Territory of Delhi and the State of Maharashtra. It is necessary to point out that the remedy of statutory appeal has been provided under Section 35-G of the Central Excise Act, 1944¹⁸. After considering the same, the High Court has held as follows:

17. There cannot be any doubt whatsoever that in terms of Article 227 of the Constitution of India as also clause (2) of Article 226 thereof, the High Court would exercise its discretionary jurisdiction as also power to issue writ of certiorari in respect of the orders passed by the subordinate courts within its territorial jurisdiction or if any cause of action has arisen therewithin but the same tests cannot be applied when the appellate court exercises a jurisdiction over a tribunal situated in more than one State. In such a situation, in our opinion, the High Court situated in the State where the first court is located should be considered to be the appropriate appellate authority.¹⁹

It is relevant to mention that the Supreme Court in Ambica Industries²⁰ has also observed that if the binding authority of a High Court does not extend beyond its territorial jurisdiction and the decision of one High Court would not be a binding precedent for other High Courts or courts or tribunals outside its territorial jurisdiction, some sort of judicial anarchy shall come into play.

The Supreme Court again encountered similar issue in Calcutta Gujarati Education Society v. EPFO²¹, wherein the jurisdiction over the Employees’ Provident Funds Appellate Tribunal (Epfat) located at Delhi, which was approached for assailing the order passed by Assistant Provident Fund Commissioner, Calcutta, was to be determined. Relying upon the principle of situs of the Tribunal, the High Court of Calcutta, has passed the order impugned therein, whereby the appeal against the order passed by the Epfat has been dismissed on the ground of lack of territorial jurisdiction as the situs of the Epfat is at New Delhi. The Supreme Court while taking the note of the judgment passed in Ambica Industries²², has followed the view that the writ petition would be maintainable at the place where the original authority/court had exercised the jurisdiction.

Specific application

It is pertinent to mention that the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (Ncdrc) has neither been constituted as other Tribunal under Article 323-B nor referred to as a tribunal in the Consumer Protection Act, 2019²³ in order to bring it into the domain of supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227. It is necessary to mention that the statute provide the appeal to the Supreme Court from the order passed by the Ncdrc only when it has been passed in the original jurisdiction i.e. under Sections 58(1)(a)(i) and 58(1)(a)(ii) of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019²⁴. But the vacuum needs to be filled in for a situation when there is no right of appeal against the order passed by the Ncdrc under Section 58(1)(a)(iii) of the said Act.

The issue of specific application of the above discussed principles over the Ncdrc, as laid down and followed by catena of decision has been examined by the Supreme Court in Ibrat Faizan v. Omaxe Buildhome (P) Ltd.²⁵ The Court has dealt the issue of jurisdiction of the High Court under Article 227 of the Constitution of India against the order passed by the Ncdrc, in an appeal under Section 58(1)(a)(iii) of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019. Further, the Supreme Court by relying upon the judgment of the Constitution Bench in Associated Cement Companies Ltd. v. P.N. Sharma²⁶, has held that the Ncdrc can be said to be a “tribunal” which is vested by statute the powers to determine conclusively the rights of two or more contending parties with regard to any matter in controversy between them. Consequently, it has been held that a petition under Article 227 against the order passed by the Ncdrc, in an appeal under Section 58(1)(a)(iii) of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 shall be maintainable before the High Court concerned. The Supreme Court has not clarified the word “concerned” as it was not necessary because the Court of First Instance i.e. State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission was located at Delhi in the said case. It is crucial to note that the usage of word “concerned” by the Court indicates that it was intended towards only one High Court which in the humbly submission of the authors would be determined on the basis of the location of the court of first instance and not on the basis of the location of the Ncdrc exercising its appellate jurisdiction.

The similar issue again arose before the Supreme Court in Siddhartha S. Mookerjee v. Madhab Chand Mitter²⁷, whereby the Court vide its judgment dated 4-3-2024, has reiterated that merely because the Ncdrc has allowed the revision petitions would not be a ground to vest jurisdiction in the High Court of Delhi. It has been held that in the said case the jurisdiction would be of High Court of Calcutta as the entire cause of action has arisen on Kolkata and also the complaint case was filed at Kolkata on the basis of the cause of action. Accordingly, the liberty was granted to Respondent 1 therein to approach the High Court of Calcutta for seeking appropriate relief.

Recently, by way of common judgment dated 12-9-2024 titled as Punjab National Bank v. Rohit Malhotra²⁸ (lead matter), the same question has been answered by the High Court of Delhi on the question, whether an order passed by the Ncdrc, while considering any appeal or revision impugning order passed by State Commission, other than the State Commission of Delhi, can be challenged under Article 227 before the High Court of Delhi or before the jurisdictional High Court where the cause of action, in the first instance, had arisen. The High Court of Delhi while taking note of Ambica Industries²⁹, Calcutta Gujarati Education Society³⁰, Ibrat Faizan³¹, etc., has held that in any situation, the situs of the Appellate Tribunal ought not to be the governing factor and one has to find out as to where the original action was initiated and thus the jurisdiction should also vest with jurisdictional High Court concerned only, irrespective of the fact whether such Tribunal was situated, elsewhere. It has been further observed that, by allowing the petitions to be filed only in Delhi High Court merely on the basis of the situs, may also jeopardise the right of access to justice, particularly when no cause of action has even arisen in Delhi. Moreover, it has been held that the words “jurisdictional High Court” as used in Universal Sompo General Insurance Co. Ltd. v. Suresh Chand Jain³² cannot be automatically inferred to be Delhi High Court only. In Ibrat Faizan³³, which related to a matter pertaining to Ncdrc only, the Supreme Court held that the aggrieved party would be required to approach the “High Court concerned” having jurisdiction under Article 227 of the Constitution of India and such phrases “High Court concerned” and “jurisdictional High Court” would not ipso facto mean “Delhi High Court”, more particularly, in view of Siddhartha S. Mookerjee³⁴.

The High Court of Delhi has given two interesting reasoning in view of Section 53 of the Consumer Protection Act³⁵ which empowers the Central Government to establish Regional Benches of the National Commission. Firstly, that if these Benches are established, any order passed by any such Regional Bench can only be challenged before the jurisdictional High Court. Secondly, if any existing Bench be designated as Regional Bench which can hear the matter through videoconferencing, even while stationed in Delhi, then also it would not be proper to apply the principle of situs of Appellate Tribunal.

Thus, the issue/void/vacuum seems to have been properly matured and crystallised in view of the discussed precedents. The said ratio shall act as North Star while determining the jurisdiction in case of any other Appellate Tribunal exercising jurisdiction over more than one State, w.r.t. which a specific law has not been pronounced at.