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Judgment
Rajamannar, C.J.—The appellant in C. M. A. No. 670 of 1949 on the file of this court seeks to file an appeal against the judgment of Mack
J. dated 13-2-1953 dismissing his appeal. The matter comes up before us on an objection by the Office that the appeal is not maintainable.
It is obvious that an appeal is not maintainable under Clause 15, Letters Patent. Learned Counsel appearing before us has not sought to raise
any contention on this clause. What he contended was that an appeal would lie under Article 227(1) of the Constitution, which runs as follows:
Every High Court shall have superintendence over all courts and tribunals throughout the territories in relation to which it exercises jurisdiction.
This provision is a substantial re-enactment of Section 107 of the Government of India Act, 1915 and Section 15 of the earlier Charter Act. So far
as we are aware, this provision has never been understood to confer a right on the High Court as such to interfere with judicial orders and
judgments made and passed by individual Judges or Division Benches of the High Court. It cannot be said that a Judge of the High Court disposing
of a Civil Miscellaneous Appeal is a court within the meaning of Article 227(1) of the Constitution and that the High Court has power of
superintendence over him so that it could interfere with his judgments. In our opinion the power of the High Court under Article 227(1) is confined
to subordinate courts & judicial & quasi-judicial tribunals which are also subordinate to it. A Judge of the High Court is not as such subordinate to
the High Court.
Learned counsel relied upon the observations of the Privy Council in -- ''Hurrish Chunder v. Kalisundari Debi'', 9 Cal 482 (A), where their
Lordships did not accept the view of Garth C. J. in -- ''Kally Soondary Dabia v. Hurrish Chunder, 6 Cal 594 (B). We do not think that these
observations help the appellants in any way. Those observations must be read in the light of the context and obviously have reference to the view
of Garth C. J. as to the nature of the order of Pontifex J. in that case, namely, that it was merely ministerial and it could not be said that the learned
Judge was usurping any jurisdiction in passing the order.
The proposed appeal is incompetent. The memorandum, of appeal will therefore be rejected.