PANKAJ CARGO MOVER Vs. SENIOR DIVISIONAL COMMERCIAL MANAGER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN these Appeals, the decision of the learned Single Judge dated 15.6.2012 has been assailed on the ground that the rejection of the Writ Petitions on the premise of the Division Bench judgment in Suguna Rajkumar Vs. R.Rajmal, ILR 2005 KAR 1583, which is contrary to several decisions of the Supreme Court including ABL International Ltd. Vs. Export Credit Guarantee Corporation of India Ltd., (2004)3 SCC 553, and Sanjana M.Wig Vs. Hindustan Petroleum Corpn. Ltd., (2005)8 SCC 242, is not correct. There can be no gainsaying that common law mandates that the view preferred by the superior Court is binding on all other Courts. Therefore, it was not open to the learned Single Judge to adopt the reasoning of a Division Bench in preference to that of the Apex Court in several decisions including the two mentioned above. In fairness to the Division Bench, which rendered Suguna Rajkumar, neither of the above judgments had been cited. We are in no manner of doubt that, had this been done by the learned Counsel who appeared in Suguna Rajkumar, the conclusion of the Division Bench would have been to the contrary. The learned Single Judge, in the impugned order, has concluded that since the disputed questions of facts required consideration and since allowing the Writ Petitions would have meant the specific enforcement of a Contract, Article 226 of the Constitution was not available.

(2.) ABL International has discussed several decisions of the Apex Court that had already been pronounced. Firstly, K.N.Guruswamy Vs. State of Mysore, AIR 1954 SC 592, which was subsequently followed in D.F.O. Vs. Ram Sanehi Singh, (1973)3 SCC 864; LIC of India Vs. Escorts Ltd., (1986)1 SCC 264; Gunwant Kaur Vs. Municipal Committee, Bhatinda, (1969)3 SCC 769, etc. After a comprehensive analysis of the rulings of the Apex Court then available, their Lordships summarized in ABL International the legal position thus:

(3.) IN order to make our judgment a composite one, we shall very succinctly deal with the following decisions of the Supreme Court.