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Thursday, June 6

Decision arrived at on the basis of no evidence or unreliable evidence would be perverse

S.R. Tewari vs. Union of India& Anr. Civil Appeal No. 4715-4716 of 2013 (Arising out of S.L.P.(C) No. 22263-22264 of 2012), Decided on May 28, 2013


The Hon’ble Supreme Court held:

“The findings of fact recorded by a court can be held to be perverse if the findings have been arrived at by ignoring or excluding relevant material or by taking into consideration irrelevant/inadmissible material. The finding may also be said to be perverse if it is “against the weight of evidence”, or if the finding so outrageously defies logic as to suffer from the vice of irrationality. If a decision is arrived at on the basis of no evidence or thoroughly unreliable evidence and no reasonable person would act upon it, the order would be perverse. But if there is some evidence on record which is acceptable and which uld be relied upon, the conclusions would not be treated as perverse and the findings would not be interfered with. [Para 24]

The court noted following cases:

Rajinder Kumar Kindra v. Delhi Administration, AIR 1984 SC 1805

Kuldeep Singh v. Commissioner of Police & Ors., AIR 1999 SC 677

Gamini Bala Koteswara Rao & Ors. v. State of Andhra Pradesh thr. Secretary, AIR 2010 SC 589

Babu v. State of Kerala, (2010) 9 SCC 189


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