The Supreme Court‘s Constitutional Court ruled that rulings from larger courts would prevail, regardless of the number of judges that make up the majority. The judgment of a 7-judge bench delivered with 4:3 majority will prevail over a unanimous 5-judge bench
A bench of five judges, consisting of judges Indira Banerjee, Hemant Gupta, Surya Kant, M.M. Sundresh and Sudhanshu Dhulia made this decision while considering the second issue in the case Trimurti Fragrances Private Ltd versus Govt of NCT of Delhi.
The Chamber noted that under Article 145(5), the consent of the majority judge shall be considered as the judgment of the Court. He also noted that the same issue was raised and answered by Justice Nageswara Rao. in the case of Jayasree Patil in the Maratha quota case.
The matter was referred in 2017 by two judges, Justices R.F. Nariman and Sanjay Kishan Kaur, who stated that if a unanimous 5 Judge Bench decision is overruled by a 7 Judge Bench with four learned Judges speaking for the majority, and three learned Judges speaking for the minority, can it be said that the 5 Judge bench has been overruled?
In current practice, tearing the legal veil and the views of the judges of the four learned judges who speak for them in a 7 Judge Bench will prevail over a unanimous 5 Judge Bench decision because they happen to speak for a 7 Judge Bench and this is a question which also needs to be answered and addressed.
The main question to which this case concern is whether to make a general order containing tax rates according to various regulations without amending the exemption rules/orders issued under specific authorities. In the rules for determining tax liability under the law, the exemption rule and the fee rule are subject to the same law and the same authority, so the exemption can be considered withdrawn and has been answered after the judgement gets answered.
