Benefit of law struck down applicable to all: HC

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: The High Court of Karnataka has said that when a law is struck down, the benefit of it is accrued to all parties; even those who were not part of the original litigation.

“When a Constitutional Court quashes a legislation or a delegated legislation, the operation of such quashment transcends the parties to the lis and operates as against all others, who were not parties eo nomine or persons claiming under them,” the Division Bench of Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale and Justice Krishna S Dixit said in their judgement on December 14.

The Rai Bahadur Seth Shreeram Narasingdas Private Limited, from Ballari (now Vijayanagara District) approached the High Court with the petition seeking to declare Clause (b) of Sub Rule 10 of Rule 4 of The Karnataka Prevention of Illegal Mining and Storage of Minerals Rules, 2011 to be unconstitutional and void.

The said rules permitted the levy of difference of royalty charges at the processing plant. The HC bench of Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale and Justice were informed that a co-ordinate bench of the HC in the case MSPL Ltd Vs State of Karnataka in its judgement on April 21, 2023, quashed the contentious provision and therefore the relief granted to the litigants in that case needs to be extended to the petitioner in this case as well as parity in treatment.

The HC in its judgement said, “Under the English Law, a judgement in rem is broadly understood as an adjudication pronounced (as its very name denotes), upon the status of some particular subject matter by a Court of competent jurisdiction for that purpose, and this pronouncement operates not only as res judicata i.e., binding inter parte but operates qua the world at large.”

Therefore the petition was allowed and the authorities were “e directed to extend to the Petitioner, the relief as granted to the litigant in M/S. MSPL LTD supra, with the same limitation/reservation as has been stated therein.” (WP 26258/2023)