Supreme Court: In a case concerning the maintainability of a writ appeal against an order passed in proceedings under Article 226 of the Constitution challenging orders of Revenue Courts, a Division Bench of Sanjay Kumar and Sanjeev Sachdeva, JJ., held that a writ petition filed under Article 226 could not be treated as one under Article 227 merely to deny the aggrieved party an appellate remedy. The Court reiterated that the extraordinary jurisdiction and powers of the High Courts under Article 226 cannot be scuttled or whittled down by legislation and that Revenue Courts exercising statutory quasi-judicial powers cannot be equated with judicial courts. Holding that the validity of orders passed by such Revenue Courts could be tested in exercise of the High Court’s writ jurisdiction under Article 226, the Court set aside the impugned order dated 20 July 2023 and restored Writ Appeal No. 576 of 2023 to the file of the Madhya Pradesh High Court for consideration afresh on its own merits and in accordance with law.
Background
The appellant, challenged the order of the Division Bench of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh, Principal Seat at Jabalpur, whereby he was non-suited in his writ appeal on the ground that although the respondents had filed the writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, it ought to be treated as one under Article 227 and, consequently, no appeal would lie against such an order. The respondents relied upon the earlier Division Bench judgment in Dangalia v. Deshraj, 1973 SCC OnLine MP 421 support the said view.
Analysis
The Court noted that in Dangalia v. Deshraj, the Division Bench had specifically observed that reversal of orders passed by the Revenue Courts could as well be sought in writ proceedings under Article 226, apart from Article 227 of the Constitution. The Court reiterated that the extraordinary jurisdiction and powers of the High Courts under Article 226 cannot be scuttled or whittled down by any legislation.
It further held that Revenue Courts exercising statutory quasi-judicial powers cannot be equated with or treated on par with judicial courts, and the validity of orders passed by such Revenue Courts can be tested before the High Court in exercise of its writ jurisdiction. Therefore, the understanding that a petition filed under Article 226 could be treated as one under Article 227 so as to deny the appellant an appellate remedy could not be sustained.
Decision
The Court set aside the impugned order dated 20 July 2023 and restored Writ Appeal No. 576 of 2023 to the file of the High Court for consideration afresh on its own merits and in accordance with law. All issues were left open. The appeal was accordingly allowed and pending application(s), if any, were disposed of.
[Vrindavan Chaturvedi v. Pushpa Devi Khemka, 2026 SCC OnLine SC 1787, decided on 2-9-2026]
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the Petitioner: Parminder Singh Bhullar, AOR, Uday Gupta, Sr. Adv., Shivani Lal, Madan Singh Thakur, Sourabh Singh Thakur, Hiren Dasan, Ajay Sharma, Unmukt Gera, Rajeev Kumar Gupta, Deepanshu Rana, Priyaranjan Singh, Aaryan Bansal, Abhi Garg, Advocates
For the Respondent: Siddharth R. Gupta, Mrigank Prabhakar, AOR, Mehul Agarwal, Shantanu Sharma, Uddaish Palya, Vishala Dwivedi, Yerradoddi Charvi Reddy, Advocates
1. (1977) MP series 739
