Now, if I may say so, a similar question was raised by my Friend Shri Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar when we were dealing with article 121, which also dealt with appeals to the Supreme Court in cases which were of a mixed type, namely, cases where there was a question of constitutional law along with questions of the interpretation of ordinary law made by Parliament. According to the original draft it was provided that in all cases where there was an issue relating to the interpretation of the constitutional law, such an appeal should be decided by a Bench of five Judges. The question that was raised by Shri Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar was that a party may, quite wickedly so to say-for the purpose of getting the benefit of a Bench of five-raise in his grounds of appeal a question relating to the interpretation of constitutional law which ultimately might be found to be a bogus one having no substance in it. Why should five Judges of the Supreme Court waste their time in dealing with an appeal where as a matter of fact there was no question of the interpretation of constitutional law? The House will remember that his argument was accepted and accordingly, if the House has got papers containing the Fourth Week’s Amendment, List No. I, Amendment 43, they will find that we then introduced. proviso which said that in a case of this sort where an appeal comes from a High Court involving not necessarily the question of the interpretation of law but involving other questions, the appeal should go to an ordinary Bench constituted under the rules made by the Supreme Court which may, I do not know, be a Bench of either two Judges or three Judges. If after hearing the appeal that particular Bench certifies that there is as a matter of fact a substantial question of the interpretation of the Constitution, then and then alone the appeal may be referred to a Bench of five Judges. Even then Bench of the five Judges to which such an appeal would be referred would decide only the constitutional issue and not the other issues. After deciding constitutional issues the Judges would direct that the case be sent back to the original Bench of the Supreme Court consisting either of two or three Judges to dispose of the same.
