Kolkata: A full bench of the Calcutta High Court has held that any judicial order passed by a Bench without proper case assignment from the Chief Justice (CJ) is a nullity in law and void from the beginning.
The ruling came in a civil appeal arising from a property dispute, where the appellants had challenged an interim order and sought relief before the High Court.
A Division Bench had earlier admitted the appeal without having the requisite “determination”—the formal allocation of the matter under the roster issued by the Chief Justice. The Division Bench had taken the view that the order was not void or a nullity, but merely irregular due to inadvertent oversight. The full bench comprising Justices Debangsu Basak, Shampa Sarkar and Hiranmay Bhattacharyya was constituted to answer the legal question of whether such an order, passed by a Bench without case assignment, could be considered valid.
The court concluded that the Bench which admitted the appeal did not have the authority to do so, as the matter had not been allotted to it by the Chief Justice. It relied on a recent Supreme Court judgment in Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Ltd. vs. GRSE Ltd. Workmen’s Union, which held that a Bench cannot adjudicate matters not placed before it in accordance with the roster.
The court observed: “An order passed by a Bench of the High Court not being conferred with the determination by virtue of the roster fixed by the Hon’ble The Chief Justice is vitiated by inherent lack of jurisdiction so as to render the order so passed a nullity in the eye of law and void ab initio.”
The full bench clarified that while the High Court institutionally has jurisdiction to hear civil appeals, individual Benches can exercise that jurisdiction only in matters specifically assigned to them by the Chief Justice.
The ruling reaffirms the constitutional principle that the Chief Justice is the “master of the roster,” and any judicial act by a Bench outside its assigned jurisdiction, even if passed inadvertently or in good faith, has no legal effect.