Scope of Supervisory Jurisdiction of High Courts explained - Allahabad HC

While discussing the scope of supervisory jurisdiction of the High Court, the Court said that this power involves a duty on the High Court to keep the inferior courts and tribunals within the bounds of their authority . Stating that the scope of judicial review is very limited and narrow, it was held that it does not vest the High Court with unlimited prerogative to correct all species of hardship or wrong decisions made within the limits of the jurisdiction of the Court or Tribunal but to remove manifest and patent errors of law and jurisdiction without acting as an appellate authority. It must be restricted to cases of grave dereliction of duty and flagrant abuse of fundamental principle of law or justice, where grave injustice would be done unless the High Court interferes and that it must be exercised most sparingly and only in appropriate cases. The Court was of the opinion that the independence of the subordinate courts in the discharge of their judicial functions is of paramount importance just as the independence of the superior courts in the discharge of their judicial functions. Moreover, the power under Article 227 of the Constitution is not in the nature of power of appellate authority enabling re-appreciation of evidence. It should not alter the conclusion reached by the Competent Statutory Authority merely on the ground of insufficiency of evidence .Therefore, it cannot interfere with the findings of fact recorded by Courts below unless there is no evidence to support findings or the findings are totally perverse.  [ Shiv Kumar Chaudhary v Sarswati Devi, WRIT - A No. - 23977 of 2014, decided on April 30th  2014]

Article referred: http://blog.scconline.com/post/2014/06/19/scope-of-supervisory-jurisdiction-of-high-courts-explained.aspx