Writ Petition or ICA

I gave you a lecture about writ petitions, this is a subject that ordinary members of the public may not fully understand, but I try my best to explain it in simple words. However, on these topics, most of the feedback I get is from lawyers. Now, staying within writ jurisdiction, a question was asked: does a writ or an ICA (Intra-Court Appeal) lie against every order passed in a writ petition? What is an ICA? First let me tell you that writ jurisdiction is very limited. Under writ jurisdiction, you cannot discuss facts, you cannot discuss circumstances and events. Under writ jurisdiction, you can only discuss the point of law. You cannot bring in dozens of factual issues tied to that legal point under writ jurisdiction, you must proceed only on the legal point, where the law prohibits someone from doing something and they are not being stopped, or where the law compels someone to do something and they are not doing it, and there is no alternative forum available for us to go and resolve this, no forum where we can raise our voice against this injustice and get our right. You come into writ jurisdiction in that case. There's another basis for writ jurisdiction, where you have no right of revision, no right of application, but the order is unlawful, then too you come into writ jurisdiction. The third, quite a complicated question, is whether a writ lies against an interlocutory order or interim order. This subject, interim orders or interlocutory orders, is quite a deep question. Interlocutory orders or interim orders also have further categories. If that interlocutory order or interim order is causing you temporary harm, with an immediate effect that is harmful to you, and that interim order or interlocutory order is clearly unlawful, against the law, unlawful, then you can come into writ jurisdiction against it. But if some interlocutory order or interim order is of a kind where you don't face an immediate risk of harm, where it has no effect on the proceedings of that case, where the final position on it still needs to be taken after the recording of evidence, meaning its final shape is to be adopted only after evidence is recorded, then you cannot go to writ jurisdiction against it.

Now your question, whether every order issued in writ jurisdiction can be challenged through an ICA, through Intra-Court Appeal, what is ICA? This is a right given under the law, under the relevant ordinance, that if you look at writ, if any litigation proceeds, any case proceeds, there is appeal, there is revision, then there is writ, and then there is the Supreme Court, all these stages exist. But if, after the writ, you want to come to ICA, Intra-Court Appeal, meaning you can appeal within the same courts. If a writ was heard by a single judge, then you file an Intra-Court Appeal, and it will be heard by two judges, called a Division Bench, and if your writ was heard by two judges, then the biggest bench possible will hear the Intra-Court Appeal.

Now, Intra-Court Appeal does not lie against every writ, make this clear to yourself, Intra-Court Appeal does not lie against every writ, it does not lie against every order issued in a writ. Where does Intra-Court Appeal lie? Intra-Court Appeal lies where the matter is not still pending elsewhere. Suppose there's a family matter, family matters, an order is passed under Section 17-A, that order no longer exists, is not renewable, you come into writ jurisdiction, in the writ an order goes against you, against whoever filed the writ, or against the party the writ was filed against, an order can be passed against either party, ICA doesn't lie in this, no Intra-Court Appeal exists, because the matter is still pending, still subordinate, in the lower court, so Intra-Court Appeal will not lie. If you want to challenge the order issued in the writ, you can go to the Supreme Court. Similarly with a rent petition, in a rent petition Intra-Court Appeal is passed, you think this is unlawful and harmful, you file a writ. Now any order passed in the writ, it must go against one party and in favour of the other, on merit. Now the party against whom it went does not have the ICA forum available.

A lawyer was arguing with me that in a petition under Section 22-A/22-B, an order was passed, and after that order, a related respectable application was pending, and during this time the other party filed a writ in the High Court, that writ was decided, against either party, now he's arguing that because a related respectable application was pending below, ICA cannot be pursued. Well, brother, you can pursue ICA, you can file an Intra-Court Appeal. The family and rent petition matters I told you about are different, and they're different because when you filed a petition under 22-A/22-B, it was disposed of, it is no longer pending, that order was challenged, that order was either set aside or upheld. Now that matter is neither pending in the 22-A/22-B forum below, nor pending in the High Court before the single bench, that's why ICA lies, that's why you can file ICA, this is set out in detail in the relevant ordinance. There's also the compliance petition related to the 22-A/22-B order, that compliance petition stands independent, it was paused when the writ was filed in the High Court, if the 22-A/22-B order is upheld, that compliance petition will resume, ICA still lies because the compliance petition has, legally, no connection to the 22-A/22-B matter at all, that's why ICA lies there.

Now a fourth situation comes up, family, rent, now there are some matters where your first forum is revision. An application under Order 7 Rule 11 was rejected, you file a revision, your revision is either accepted or dismissed, it must go against one party. Now that party against whom it went files a writ. When that goes into writ jurisdiction and a decision is made in the writ, that decision cannot be challenged through ICA, because the related case is still pending, pending in the civil court, that's why ICA does not lie there, then after that you would go to the Supreme Court.

This is what I'm explaining to you about ICA, that ICA does not lie against every order issued in every writ petition, it lies against those orders where the matter is not pending in any court below, whether that's a revenue court or any other court. I hope I have answered your question.