The Supreme Court has pulled up the Rajasthan High Court for this judgment

The Supreme Court of late has been calling high courts out for delivering judgments that do not meet their standards. A few days after it remanded a case back to the Himachal Pradesh High Court, the apex court has now sent back a judgment of the Rajasthan High Court..A Bench of Justices RK Agrawal and AM Sapre did so after both a single judge bench and a Division Bench of the Jodhpur Bench dismissed a writ petition in limine, without recording any reasons for the same. The apex court Bench also noted that the rulings did not contain the facts, grounds or contentions of the parties. It stated,.“…in order to appreciate the factual and legal controversy involved in the lis, the least which is expected of is that the order which decides the lis between the parties should contain the brief facts involved in the case, the grounds on which the action is impugned, the stand of the parties defending the action, the submissions of the parties in support of their stand, legal provisions, if any, applicable to the controversy involved in the lis, and lastly, the brief reasons as to why the case of one party deserves acceptance or rejection, as the case may be.”.The petitioner, Municipal Board of Sumerpur, had challenged an order of the Collector before the High Court, way back in 2004. The single judge dismissed the petition with the following order in 2005:.“Heard learned counsel for the parties. The order impugned, Annex.8 has been passed in compliance of the order passed by Division Bench of this Court dated 15.1.2001 passed inter-parties being Annex.7. It is not shown, as to how the order, Annex.8 is not in accordance with the directions contained in Annex.7. In that view of the matter, I do not find any ground to interfere. The writ petition is, therefore, dismissed summarily.”.And the Division Bench dismissed the ensuing appeal with this order,.“Having heard learned counsel for the appellant we are of the opinion that no interference is called for in this appeal in the judgment of learned Single Judge who has rightly exercised his discretion in not interfering with the order passed by the Collector as the learned counsel has not been able to show how the impugned order is contrary to direction of Division Bench..In essence learned counsel for the appellant tried to urge that the decision rendered in Hotechad’s case in the light of which the Division Bench in his earlier decision has directed to decide his representation, was erroneous. That is not permissible.”.Aggrieved by these rulings, the petitioner approached the Supreme Court, which after almost nine years, decided to remand the case back to the High Court. The Bench held,.“…the writ Court should have issued notice of the writ petition to the respondents and then decided the writ petition on merits by reasoned order rather than to dismiss it in limine..… The Appellate Court too while dismissing the appeal in limine did not deal with any of the submissions raised by the appellant and nor assigned any reason much less in detail thereby depriving the Appellate Court to examine the issues arising in the case in its proper perspective.”.The Court also directed the High Court to dispose of the matter expeditiously, since the matter was “quite old”..Read judgment: