There is something odd about both lines of thinking we just encountered. Surely, the plain words of Article 226(2) permit the High Court to issue writs to persons and authorities outside its ordinary territorial state limits. Therefore the second line of thinking which denies this extra territorial reach to a High Court is unacceptable. However , that need not lead us to accepting the first line of thinking — that just because a High Court can issue writs to authorities outside its jurisdiction, its law is binding throughout India.

The trouble with both lines of thinking is similar, namely, the assumption that the bindingness of an individual ‘ruling’ of a court is the same as bindingness of the general ‘rule’ on which the ruling is based. A general ‘rule’ is distilled from individual ‘rulings’ of the court. For instance if a High Court in a ‘ruling’ awards compensation to B who was hit by A’s car which he was driving at 100 kms/hr in a dark crowded street, the general ‘rule’ distilled from the above is that anyone who drives rashly and negligently will have to compensate for any accident caused by him.

It may come as interesting legal trivia that a ruling of a court in England, in appropriate circumstances, against a party in India (say, on contract law decided according to English contract law ) is binding on the Indian party. But by that token, is the rule of English contract law, on which the court’s ‘ruling’ is based, applicable in India? The answer is an emphatic, No! How does this happen?

... contd.