Judges can't dictate judgments in part: SC

NEW DELHI: Judges cannot do with merely dictating a portion of the judgement as such a practice would render the entire judgement invalid, the Supreme Court has said.

A judgement has to be pronounced in an open court by the judge to the shorthand writer in the form of a dictation wherever it is permissible as stipulated under Order 20, Rule 1 of the CPC (Civil Procedure Code), a bench of Justices Arijit Pasayat and P Sathasivam observed.

"The mere fact that a major portion has been dictated by the learned judge in the judgment already dictated will not by itself lead to the conclusion that the judgement had been delivered," the Apex Court observed while dismissing an appeal.

The appeal was filed by K V Rami Reddy who challenged a Madras High Court judgment which had quashed a judgment in a civil dispute after noting that the Seventh Assistant Civil Judge, Chennai had passed the same without dictating the whole text in the open court as prescribed by the CPC.

The Assistant Civil Judge committed the said irregularity while dealing with suit for specific performance filed by a woman Prema who subsequently challenged his action before the Madras High Court.

A single judge of the Madras High Court upheld Prema's argument that when a judgement was not dictated in full in the open court it was "non-est in the eye of law" (an invalid judgment) and the remitted the matter back to the said judge to hear the arguments afresh upon which Reddy appealed in the Apex Court.