The Andhra Pradesh High Court has dismissed a batch of appeals that either were transferred to, or filed directly in, the High Court in the wake of the State’s abolition of the Special Court constituted under the Andhra Pradesh Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act, 1982 (“the 1982 Act”) by a Government Order in 2016. The issue before the bench — Justices Ravi Nath Tilhari and Maheswara Rao Kuncheam — was whether, after the abolition of the Special Court, appeals under Section 7A(3) of the 1982 Act could be maintainable in the High Court, even though the statute had not been amended to provide for such a change.
Under Section 7A(3) of the 1982 Act, any appeal (except interlocutory ones) from orders of the Special Tribunal lie to the Special Court. In 2016, the State Government, by G.O. Ms. No. 420 dated 02.09.2016, abolished the Special Court via notification. Alongside that abolition, the same order purported to transfer all pending appeals from the Special Court to the then common High Court of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, and treated the High Court as the appellate forum under the 1982 Act. Later, following bifurcation of the common High Court, the appeals were assigned to their respective High Courts based on territorial jurisdiction. Some appellants also filed appeals directly in the High Court after the Special Court was abolished.
The petitioners argued that Section 7A(3) gave them a statutory and vested right of appeal to the Special Court, and that this vested right could not be extinguished simply by abolishing the Special Court; further, they contended that in the absence of the Special Court, the High Court should automatically become the appellate forum. In contrast, the State contended that while it had power under the 1982 Act to abolish or reconstitute the Special Court, it did not have power to vest appellate jurisdiction in the High Court without legislative amendment.
The High Court found that the Government Order abolishing the Special Court was within the executive powers conferred by Section 7A of the 1982 Act. However, it held that the part of G.O. Ms. No. 420 which provided for transfer of pending appeals to the High Court and treated the High Court as the appellate Court under the Act was beyond the powers of the State Government. The Court observed that the statute does not confer power on the State Government to create a new appellate Court other than the Special Court defined under the Act. Therefore, the portion of the order that sought to vest appellate jurisdiction in the High Court was contrary to the statute and was ultra vires.
Consequently, the Court held that the vested right of appeal that existed under Section 7A(3) before abolition of the Special Court perished when the Special Court was abolished, because no statutory mechanism was put in place to replace it with a competent appellate forum. The High Court made clear that although the Special Court may be abolished by the executive under the Act, the creation of an alternate appellate forum must be by legislation, i.e., an amendment to the Act, which had not been done.
The Court also rejected the doctrine of “successive forum” as a basis for treating the High Court as the appellate forum. It held that for a successive forum to succeed to an abolished forum, it must be created by the competent authority via legislation. Since the High Court was not made such by statute under the Act, it could not assume appellate jurisdiction simply by reason of being a superior court.
Thus, all appeals filed before the High Court, whether transferred from the Special Court or filed directly after its abolition, were held to be not maintainable, and were dismissed. The High Court clarified that while the right of appeal has perished due to abolition of the forum (Special Court) without alternate forum created by law, orders may still be open to judicial review in appropriate proceedings.
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