Sir, article 112 has been specially incorporated for the purpose of giving special jurisdiction to the Supreme Court. I was a little surprised to find my honourable Friend Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava complaining that it was rather too wide. The article says: “The Supreme Court may, in its discretion grant special leave to appeal from any judgment decree or final order in any cause or matter…..” No doubt the words ‘any cause or matter’ are such as to include any matter whether civil, criminal or revenue or otherwise. By special reference to revenue, it seems to me that Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava thought that it was not necessary that the Supreme Court should be in a position in special cases to interfere in matters which are decided on the revenue side. If you look at the history of the administration of certain Acts passed by the former Government in respect of revenue, and which are even continued in the present days, and the cases of injustice, to grant special leave to appeal even in revenue matters. In our own province, there is the Revenue Jurisdiction Act against which for years there has been agitation on the platform and in public, because that Act was intended to put out the jurisdiction of the Court by the Executive. Certainly I appreciate that when we are establishing a Supreme Court for our country, it should have this special jurisdiction to grant leave to appeal in all matters whether they are civil, criminal, revenue or otherwise. Because, the Supreme Court is intended in this country to serve the functions of the King in some other countries where he is the fountain-head of all justice. Here, there is no King, and naturally therefore we must have some independent body which must be the guardian of administration of justice and which must see that justice is done between man and man in all matters whether civil, criminal or revenue. From that point of view, Sir, I think that having made a provision for a Supreme Court, it is necessary that special powers should be given to that Court as in this article 112.
