Public confidence shaken when court orders speak with discordant voices on identical record: SC

New Delhi, Nov 11 (PTI) The Supreme Court on Tuesday said when its final orders speak with "discordant voices" on an identical record, the integrity of adjudication is imperilled and the public confidence is shaken.

A bench comprising Chief Justice B R Gavai and Justices Surya Kant and Vikram Nath allowed a curative petition filed by Surendra Koli, challenging his conviction in one of the cases related to the sensational Nithari killings.

A curative petition is the last legal recourse available to a party after exhausting other remedies, including a review petition in the top court.

"This curative petition presents an exceptional case for the exercise of our curative jurisdiction. The petitioner (Koli) shows that a manifest miscarriage of justice endures and that two sets of outcomes resting on the same evidentiary foundation cannot lawfully coexist," the bench said.

It said the apex court's curative jurisdiction exists to prevent abuse of process and cure a gross miscarriage of justice.

The top court referred to the Rupa Ashok Hurra versus Ashok Hurra case and said its Constitution bench had recognised that this power flows from the inherent authority of the apex court to do complete justice and protect the integrity of its judgments.

It emphasised that the Rupa Ashok Hurra verdict makes it clear that a curative petition is not a second review.

"Finality remains the rule and intervention is reserved only for very strong reasons that strike at the legitimacy of the adjudicatory process," the bench said.

It said the controlling test is whether the earlier decision produces a result that offends the court's conscience because of a fundamental defect in the process or a grave miscarriage of justice.

"Such defects may appear where outcomes are irreconcilably inconsistent on the same substratum of facts and evidence or where material circumstances bearing on fairness and reliability were overlooked or where the guarantees of equality and due process under Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution stand compromised," it said.

It noted that in the instant case, the apex court had, on February 15, 2011, affirmed Koli's conviction and sentence, and his plea seeking a review of the verdict was dismissed on October 28, 2014.

The bench further noted that on January 28, 2015, the Allahabad High Court had commuted Koli's death sentence in the case to life imprisonment.

It also noted that Koli was already acquitted in the 12 other cases related to the Nithari killings and the top court had dismissed the appeals filed by the CBI and the victims' families challenging these acquittals. PTI ABA SJK RC