Image Source: barandbench.com
In Shankar Lal v. State of Uttar Pradesh, the Allahabad High court on Monday reaffirmed that the scope of judicial review is limited under article 227 of Indian Constitution.
High Courts exercise supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227 and the power is to ensure that lower courts and tribunals do not exceed the limits of their authority.
Justice Raj Beer Singh ruled,
"In supervisory jurisdiction of this Court over subordinate Courts, the scope of judicial review is very limited and narrow and even the errors of law cannot be corrected in exercise of such powers. The power enshrined under Article 227 of the Constitution is of judicial superintendence and it cannot be used to upset conclusions of fact, however, erroneous, unless such conclusions are so perverse or unreasonable that no court could have ever reached them," the Court held.
The power with high court does not vests it with unlimited prerogative to correct all species of hardship or wrong decisions within the limits of the jurisdiction of the court.
The petitioner approached high court under article 227 to set aside two orders which were passed by lower courts at Meerut.
Furthermore it was contended by the petitioner that his application under section 202 was arbitrarily dismissed.
In the instant case, the Court noted that no such injury has been shown and it, therefore, proceeded to dismiss the petition upholding the decisions/ observations made by the subordinate court.