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Law of case - previous orders passed by same Court or any superior Court binds the subsequent proceedings of the case

In STATE OF KERALA vs K.K. MATHAI, the Kerala High Court explained the Law Of Case.

A civil contractor had two arbitral awards passed in his favour against the Government. The Civil Appeals filed by the Government against the awards were dismissed. In further appeals filed by the Government before the High Court, the appeals were allowed in part, with modification of award. Against the modification made by the High Court, the Contractor moved the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, set aside the impugned judgments of the High Court holding that they were on
wrongful premises. Further, the appellant contractor was granted “liberty to the appellant to file Review Petitions” before the High Court. Accordingly, the Contractor filed review petitions before the High Court. Another Division Bench which considered the review petitions formed the opinion that review was unnecessary, and posted the appeals for fresh hearing.

Two questions emerge from the above fact situation- When the judgments of the High Court were already set-aside by the Supreme Court, what is the further scope for granting liberty to the appellant-contractor to file review?. Also, when the review was so filed by the contractor, could the Division Bench of the High Court have reopened the concluded appeals for further hearing in the review petition filed by the contractor, especially so when the Court observed that the review was unnecessary.

When appeals thus re-opened came for final hearing before the present Division Bench, the Bench was confronted with the question as to whether the orders passed by the previous Division Bench directing the fresh hearing of appeals will be binding on the matter. It was in that context that the ‘Doctrine of Law of the Case’ was discussed.

By referring to various jurists, the judgment authored by Justice Dama Sheshadri Naidu summarised that the “law of the case”, fetters a later Bench in the same case from taking a contrary stand to that taken earlier by the previous Bench. It was also made clear that this doctrine was different from the law of precedents, as the binding force of precedents is only to the extent of similarity of facts. Whereas, in law of case, the previous orders passed by the same Court or any superior Court in the case, binds the subsequent proceedings of the case. For example, the orders passed in interlocutory applications might bind subsequent proceedings. Or, the directions issued by an appellate Court while remanding a matter might bind the subsequent proceedings at lower Court.

Applying the said doctrine in the instant case would have meant that the Court should hear the appeals afresh. That would have led to an anomalous result, in that it would amount to re-opening the judgments which were totally set-aside by the Supreme Court; the incongruity gets further aggravated when it is seen that such re-opening is being done in the review petition filed by the Contractor, depriving him of the benefit of the Supreme Court judgment. Also, the State, which did not initiate any further proceedings against the judgments of the High Court which partially rejected its
appeal, will get benefited from the re-hearing process at the cost of the contractor.

 Article referred: http://www.livelaw.in/kerala-hc-explains-doctrine-law-case-binding-nature-previous-orders-subsequent-stages-case-read-judgment/

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