Doctrine of Merger:
The Supreme Court recently emphasized that the application of the Doctrine of Merger, in every case, should be accompanied by an awareness of its limitations and should not be wielded to close avenues for addressing genuine concerns.
- The Doctrine of Merger is a common law doctrine founded on the principle of maintenance of decorum and propriety in the functioning of Courts and Tribunals and preserving the sanctity of the justice delivery system.
- It provides that when an appellate court passes an order, the order passed by the lower court is merged with that order.
- The underlying logic being that there cannot be more than one decree or operative order governing the same subject-matter at a given point of time.
- The doctrine is not recognized statutorily but is a statement of judicial propriety and seeks to instill discipline in the functioning of subordinate adjudicating authorities, whether judicial, quasi-judicial or administrative.
- The applicability of the doctrine of merger entails the existence of a decision of a subordinate court/forum against which a right of appeal/revision before a superior forum/authority exists, which has been exercised and which has either modified, reversed or affirmed the decision of the subordinate authority.
- The consequence of such an act would be that the decision of the subordinate authority shall merge with that of the superior forum, which only shall sustain, be operative and capable of being enforced.
- The essence of the doctrine of merger is that it is only the decisions of the appellate, revisional or higher authority that subsist and the order under challenge ceases to have an independent existence.
- The doctrine solves the issue of which order must be enforced and given importance if there are multiple orders passed by both subordinate and superior courts on a single issue.
- It is not a doctrine of universal or unlimited application. It will depend on the nature of jurisdiction exercised by the superior forum and the content or subject-matter of the challenge.
