The Jana Nayagan case: High watermark of legal formalism

The recent decision of the Madras High Court has brought to focus the powers of a High Court under Article 226 to grant relief in the absence of an appropriate prayer to that effect in the petition.

At the outset, it must be made clear that this is not an article about the correctness of the decision. The matter is now out of the court system. However, the legal question deserves close examination. The broader issue is whether a form of pleading must be elevated over substance by holding that even orders, which were purportedly without any legal authority, could not be tested unless a specific challenge was made in the writ petition.

The dispute arose out of certification of the Tamil film Jana Nayagan. The Examining Committee had unanimously recommended a “UA 16+” certificate subject to excisions. The cuts were carried out and the film was resubmitted. Thereafter, on the complaint of a member who had earlier signed the recommendation, the Chairperson referred the film to a Revising Committee under Rule 25, effectively superseding the earlier communication. The producer sought a mandamus directing the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to issue certification in line with the original recommendation.

The single judge who heard the petition called for the original files and found that the Examining Committee had unanimously recommended the grant of a UA certificate provided certain portions were excised from the picture. The Court held that the Chairperson had no jurisdiction to exercise power under Rule 25 after the Board had recommended the grant of certification under Rule 24. The order of the Chairperson was quashed as one without jurisdiction and a mandamus was issued directing the CBFC to issue a certificate in line with its earlier communication.

The CBFC appealed and the Division Bench overturned the order primarily on the ground that the single judge ought not to have ventured into the correctness of the order of the Chairperson without there being a challenge to the same in the writ petition. According to the Division Bench “view, the writ petition itself was not maintainable without seeking appropriate relief of quashing the decision taken by the Chairperson, CBFC.”

Though elementary, there is a fine distinction between “maintainability” and “entertainability” of a writ petition. In the former class, the objection prevents the Court from receiving the lis for adjudication. In the latter, though the writ petition is maintainable the Court may decline to exercise its jurisdiction for sound reasons [See Godrej Sara Lee, (2023)]. At the highest, the absence of a prayer may affect the manner in which relief is moulded. To conflate entertainability with maintainability is to convert a matter of discretion into one of jurisdiction.

The real question is whether the lack of an appropriate prayer would denude the Court from adjudicating the lis before it. The governing principle, as I understand, is that the writ court always has the power to fashion an appropriate relief. Once the Court concludes that a legal or fundamental right has been infringed, it possesses the power and even the duty to grant appropriate relief.

In one of the early cases in Chiranjit Lal, (1951),  Mukherjea, J, speaking for the majority, made it clear that,

“Article 32 of the Constitution gives us very wide discretion in the matter of framing our writs to suit the exigencies of particular cases, and the application of the petitioner cannot be thrown out simply on the ground that the proper writ or direction has not been prayed for.”

In United Motors (1953), one of the contentions raised before the Bombay High Court was that the prayer for mandamus was not correct since mandamus could not be issued to restrain the authorities from enforcing the provisions of the Act. Rejecting this contention, Chief Justice Chagla said:

"Whatever principles may apply when a mandamus is sought, entirely different considerations would apply when the question is of enforcing fundamental rights, and there is no doubt and there can be no doubt that the High Court has been given the widest powers of issuing any order, any direction or any writ under Article 226 appropriate to the occasion and the situation which would safeguard the fundamental rights of a citizen or any person affected by the violation or contravention of fundamental rights."

The Supreme Court reiterated the principle with equal vigour in Hari Vishnu Kamath (1955), where Venkatarama Ayyar J, who spoke for a unanimous 7 judge bench, said:

“Looking at the substance of the matter, when once, it is held that the intention of the Constitution was to vest in the High Court a power to supervise decisions of Tribunals by the issue of appropriate writ and directions, the exercise of that power cannot be defeated by technical considerations of form and procedure.”

The aforesaid sentence should have sufficed to point out that technical quibbling on pleadings and procedure ought not to detain a writ court where the justice of the cause requires relief to be granted.

In P Rathinaswami Pillai v. The Regional Transport Authority, Salem (1965), a Division Bench of the Madras High Court observed that though the petitioner had erroneously sought for a certiorari where the appropriate relief was for mandamus, in view of the decision in Hari Vishnu Kamath, the Court could “ignore the form of relief sought by the Petitioner, and grant him the necessary redress by issuing the appropriate writ, if the facts and circumstances would warrant and justify it.” Other High Courts have also taken a similar view [See for instance the decisions in Prakash Chand Jain v. State of MP (2003) and Nilamani Mishra v. State of Orissa (1991)].

More recently, in Vashist Narayan Kumar v. State of Bihar (2024), the Supreme Court speaking through KV Viswanathan J disapproved the view of the High Court which had refused to set aside a selection on the ground that there was no prayer to quash the results declared over the web. Recognising the power of the Court to mould the relief, it was held that justice could not be forsaken at the altar of technicalities. It appears that this decision in Vashist Narayan Kumar was cited before the Division Bench but was distinguished on the ground that the decision “was on the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case and not as a general proposition of law of universal application.”

With great respect to the Division Bench, it appears that their attention was not invited to the decision of the Supreme Court in Nur Islam and others v. State of Assam (2025), which was delivered January 10, 2026, one day after the order of the single judge. Speaking for the Court, Amanullah J referred to a decision of his in Mangalagiri Textile Mills Private Limited, (2022), where as a judge of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, he held,

“We have noticed an injustice and a violation of law. We, thus, proceed to fashion out the appropriate relief, despite no formal application for the same being made via pleadings. However, in the course of arguments, learned counsel for the petitioner did urge us to pass an order that would subserve justice.”

What is more interesting is the fact that the observations made by Viswanathan J in Vashist Narayan Kumar were cited in Nur Islam as laying down a general principle and not as an exception to the rule as has been held by the Division Bench.

In another set of two-judge bench decisions - Sunita Mehra (2001) and X v. O/o Speaker of the House of People (2025) - a view has been expressed that the writ court should not quash an order in the absence of an explicit challenge to the same in the writ petition. These decisions, however, do not take note of the earlier Constitution Bench decisions and the later decisions in Nur Islam and Vashist Narayan Kumar.

Coming back to Jana Nayagan, the single judge had quashed the order of the Chairperson for want of jurisdiction. Either the Chairperson had the jurisdiction or he did not. In plainer terms, the single judge returned a finding not of erroneous exercise of jurisdiction, but rather a case of a total lack of jurisdiction. The former renders the act complained voidable whereas the latter renders it void ab initio. In Dhurandhar Prasad Singh (2001), the Supreme Court had taken then view that where the act complained of is “wholly without jurisdiction, ab initio void” no declaration was necessary as the law did not take notice of it and such orders could be disregarded in collateral proceedings as well. Once the single judge had found that the order of the Chairperson lacked jurisdiction, consequences were clearly bound to follow. The Court was not granting relief out of thin air; it was merely giving effect to the legal conclusion it had reached.

One cannot also help notice the grievance aired that the single judge had not called for a counter affidavit from the CBFC and had “hurriedly” decided the writ petition. Whether the Chairperson had jurisdiction or not was a pure question of law. Jurisdiction is derived from the Act and the Rules and not from counter affidavits which are filed to controvert facts. If the Chairperson did not possess jurisdiction from the Act and the Rules, it is unfathomable as to how his power could be traced to a counter affidavit. It is a matter of common experience for those in the Madras High Court that where the issue raised is a pure question of law, matters can and are usually disposed without a counter affidavit.

In the final analysis, the powers of a Constitutional court to render justice must not be defeated by technical considerations of form and procedure, as was pointed out by Justice Venkatarama Ayyar. The power to mould or fashion an appropriate relief having regard to the facts of a particular case is a necessary concomitant of the constitutional powers exercised by a High Court. I have no doubt that when the occasion does arise, the learned judges of the Madras High Court will say, as their illustrious predecessors have said,

“The Constitution does not allow reasons of State to influence our judgment, Fiat Justitia rua caelum.”

Justice PN Prakash is a former judge of the Madras High Court.