The Supreme Court has urged Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna to issue administrative directions clarifying that applications seeking exemption from surrendering while filing an appeal in the top court cannot be entertained unless the petitioner has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment.
A bench of justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta underscored the apparent anomaly in the listing of exemption applications and called for uniformity in adherence to Supreme Court Rules, 2013, that lays down the procedure in the matter.
To be sure, it is rare for a Supreme Court bench to urge the CJI to intervene on the administrative side. Judicial benches typically focus on adjudication rather than procedural directives, which fall in the exclusive domain of the CJI. However, the bench’s call for uniformity in implementing the Supreme Court rules highlights the pressing need it felt for administrative clarity to prevent procedural inconsistencies.
The bench emphasised that Order XXII Rule 5 of the SC Rules explicitly allows exemption from surrendering only when the petitioner has been sentenced to imprisonment and not in other cases, such as the rejection of anticipatory bail or the denial of an extension of interim bail. This rule prescribes that if someone appealing a case has been sentenced to jail, they must either submit documents to prove they have surrendered to authorities when filing their appeal, or must move an application for permission not to surrender.
The court lamented that the Supreme Court registry has been incorrectly entertaining applications for surrender exemptions in situations where the petitioner was not sentenced to imprisonment.
“We have observed that the registry of this court has been entertaining applications for exemption from surrendering in various other categories of cases, such as the rejection of anticipatory bail, rejection of a prayer for an extension of interim bail, etc,” noted the bench in its January 30 order, released on Tuesday.
To address this, the bench directed that the matter be placed before the CJI for issuing formal instructions to the registry and relevant administrative sections dealing with filing and scrutiny of such petitions.
“This order shall be placed before Hon’ble the Chief Justice of India for seeking formal instructions to the concerned filing, scrutiny and numbering sections concerning matters in which Order XXII Rule 5 will apply,” stated the bench.
While dealing with a criminal case arising from Gujarat, the bench cited earlier rulings reinforcing this principle. In Mahavir Arya Vs Government of NCT of Delhi (2021), the top court had ruled that Order XXII Rule 5 applies only where the petitioner has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment and cannot be invoked in cases involving cancellation of bail or rejection of anticipatory bail. Similarly, in Kapur Singh Vs State of Haryana (2021), the apex court categorically stated that Order XXII Rule 5 does not mandate surrender or exemption when a person has not been sentenced to imprisonment.
In light of these precedents and the continuing misinterpretation of the rule by the top court registry, the bench held: “An application seeking exemption from surrendering cannot be entertained or listed before the Hon’ble Judge-in-Chambers in any special leave petition, except where the petitioner has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment.”
The Supreme Court’s direction and a positive intervention by CJI Khanna is expected to bring administrative clarity and prevent the filing of surrender exemption applications in cases where they are not legally permissible.
Ends