"He is now NRIs' responsibility": Supreme Court while trying to decipher judgment by ex- High Court judge

Retired Punjab and Haryana High Court Justice Sureshwar Thakur, known for using complex and often undecipherable language in his judgments, was once again the subject of discussion at the Supreme Court as the Bench and lawyers collectively struggled to unravel one of his judgments delivered before his recent retirement..A Bench of Justices Surya Kant, Dipankar Datta and Vijay Bishnoi remarked that the judge behind the judgement is now the responsibility of the Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) since he has been appointed head of the Punjab State Commission for NRIs. “Anyways, now that he has demitted the office, he has taken over as the chairperson of the NRI Commission of Punjab. So, now it’s the burden or responsibility of the NRIs,” Justice Surya Kant remarked. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta smiled and replied that the NRIs will now have to understand English, not the resident Indians. To this, Justice Surya Kant said it may be easy for those people. “Most of them are in Canada or Europe, so they will understand.”.The Court was hearing an appeal against the judgment passed by a bench of Justices Sureshwar Thakur and Vikas Suri on March 20, effectively staying Section 3G of the National Highways Act, 1956Mehta read a verbose paragraph from the judgment and tried to simplify the order. “The effect of the necessity of existence of an ad idem arbitration clause, in the contract drawn amongst the contracting parties concerned, but is that, qua therebys but fortification becoming infused… Thus a force majeure statutory arbitration, therebys when it looses its functionality,” Mehta quoted the judgement. He then explained in his terms,“It says statutory arbitration is not permissible, only contractual… Section 3G is declared unconstitutional.”As he explained, the Bench smiled. “Thoda sa time lagega isko samajhne me (It will take some time to understand this),” Justice Surya Kant said. Mehta asked the Court to stay the order, and the other counsels agreed. The Bench expressed surprise that all the sides were in agreement on the issue. .Mehta then reminded the Court that a previous order from the same judge, when he was serving at the Himachal Pradesh High Court, came before the Supreme Court in 2017, and the Bench passed an order remitting the case back to the judge, saying they could not understand what had been written. Justice Datta remembered the case clearly. “It is incomprehensible. That was the word used. Justice [Madan B] Lokur and Justice [Deepak] Gupta,” he replied. Ultimately, the Court stayed the judgment. “Meanwhile, the operation of the impugned judgment(s) shall remain stayed. Consequently, the pending proceedings under Section 3G(5) of the National Highways Act, 1956; Sections 34, 36 and 37 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 and the execution of arbitral awards shall continue in accordance with law,” the Court ordered. .Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, along with advocates KS Kang, Amrendra Kumar Mehta, Raghwi Singh, Pallavi Daem and Gunjan Kumari appeared for the Union of India. Advocates Shrey Kapoor, Karan Kapoor, Gagneshwar Walia, Munish Gupta, KS Minhas, Srishti Singla and Lobhpreet Kaur represented the petitioners. .[Read Order]