SC flags growing trend of overturning own rulings

The observations came while hearing a plea filed by Anisur Rahman, accused in a 2019 murder case in West Bengal, who sought modification of a bail condition restricting him from leaving Kolkata

The Supreme Court on Wednesday warned that a “growing trend” of reopening and overturning its own verdicts before differently constituted benches threatens to “undermine” the authority and credibility of the apex court, besides weakening the constitutional mandate of finality of its rulings.

The Supreme Court said the legitimacy of judicial power rests less on perfect correctness and more on certainty, and that reopening matters because a later bench might take a “better view” defeats the purpose of adjudication and risks eroding respect for judicial outcomes (ANI)

Sounding the alarm amid recent high-profile reversals, a bench of justices Dipankar Datta and AG Masih, cautioned that the practice of litigants attempting to secure a fresh outcome merely because of a change in bench composition risks undermining consistency and stability in the law, which are values central to the functioning of the Supreme Court.

The bench lamented that in the recent past, “we have rather painfully observed a growing trend in this Court (of which we too are an indispensable part) of verdicts pronounced by Judges, whether still in office or not and irrespective of the time lapse since pronounced, being overturned by succeeding benches or specially constituted benches at the behest of some party aggrieved by the verdicts prior in point of time.”

“The prospect of opening up a further round of challenge before a succeeding bench, hoping that a change in composition will yield a different outcome, would undermine this Court’s authority and the value of its pronouncements,” said the bench, calling the trend a threat to the very idea of finality in judicial decision-making.

Emphasising the foundational importance of finality to the rule of law, the judgment invoked the famous words of US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson : “We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final.”

The bench said the legitimacy of judicial power rests less on perfect correctness and more on certainty, and that reopening matters because a later bench might take a “better view” defeats the purpose of adjudication and risks eroding respect for judicial outcomes. Once a dispute has been adjudicated, the Court said, the parties must be able to rely on the closure it provides; otherwise, the justice system becomes unstable, unpredictable and vulnerable to strategic manipulation.

The observations came while hearing a plea filed by Anisur Rahman, accused in a 2019 murder case in West Bengal, who sought modification of a bail condition restricting him from leaving Kolkata. The bench refused to alter its earlier January order and said the present plea, filed shortly after the judge who led the previous bench demitted office, appeared to be “an attempt to take a chance because of the changed scenario.”

The court stressed that judicial discipline, comity and propriety require a later bench to defer to an earlier one, unless there is something “so grossly erroneous on the face of the record or palpably wrong” that review or curative jurisdiction is triggered.

The warning assumes significance at a time when the Supreme Court has recently reviewed, recalled or substantially modified its own decisions in at least three major matters, including the Tamil Nadu governor-assent dispute, the Vanshakti verdict on post-facto environmental clearances (ECs), and the order directing liquidation of Bhushan Power & Steel. In each of these matters, differently composed benches revisited and replaced earlier rulings, provoking intense debate within legal circles about judicial certainty and the risk of litigants waiting for a more favourable bench.

On November 20, a five-judge bench nullified the April 8 ruling that imposed strict timelines for Governors and even the President to deal with state bills and introduced the concept of “deemed assent” for the assent to be given.

In the Vanashakti case, on November 18, the top court by 2-1, reversed its May 15 ruling that had prohibited retrospective ECs, calling the prior verdict a “gross illegality”. Justice Ujjal Bhuyan dissented, calling the reversal “a step in transgression”.

In the Bhushan Power & Steel and JSW Steel case, on July 31, the court recalled its May 2 order directing liquidation, acknowledging an error in recorded submissions and calling the recall essential to prevent economic disruption.

The Wednesday judgment underscored that certainty in law is as crucial as correctness, and that without it, Article 141, which declares the Supreme Court’s pronouncements as binding law for all courts, loses constitutional purpose.

The court warned that if reversals become routine, the authority of the Supreme Court could be compromised and the stability that underpins the administration of justice could be lost. The bench called for restraint, institutional discipline and close adherence to established mechanisms such as review and curative petitions, signalling that the integrity of the Court depends on the credibility its judges themselves lend to its final decisions.

“To us, the object of Article 141 of the Constitution seems to be this: the pronouncement of a verdict by a bench on a particular issue of law (arising out of the facts involved) should settle the controversy, being final, and has to be followed by all courts as law declared by the Supreme Court. However, if a verdict is allowed to be reopened because a later different view appears to be better, the very purpose of enacting Article 141 would stand defeated,” it noted.