NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has said HCs and subordinate courts face difficulty in determining whether its judgment is in the process of decision making or precedent making, and emphasised that there is a need for the court to clearly state the intent behind a judgment while passing a verdict.
A bench of Justices P S Narasimha and Pankaj Mithal observed, “As an institution, our Supreme Court performs the twin functions of decision making and precedent making. A substantial portion of our jurisdiction under Article 136 is reflective of regular appellate disposition of decision making.”
“Every judgment or order made by this court in disposing of these appeals is not intended to be a binding precedent under Article 141. Though the arrival of a dispute for this court’s consideration, either for decision making or precedent making is at the same tarmac, every judgment or order which departs from this court lands at the doorstep of the high courts and the subordinate courts as a binding precedent,” it observed.
“We are aware of the difficulties that high courts and the subordinate courts face in determining whether the judgment is in the process of decision-making or precedent-making, particularly when we have also declared that even an obiter of this court must be treated as a binding precedent for the high courts and the courts below,” the bench said.
In the process of decision making, this court takes care to indicate the instances where the decision of the SC is not to be treated as precedent.
