- (1.) HEARD Sri Irshad Ali for the Petitioner and Sri Ashok Mehta, learned Chief Standing Counsel for the respondents.
(2.) THIS application has been filed for a prayer that the direction of the Court date 16-12-1998 in the present writ petition and the judgments dated 10-3-1998 and 25-3-1998 in Writ Petition No 5733 of 1998 as well as the judgment dated 23-12-1998 in Writ Petition No. 44707 of 1998 should be complied with. The case relate to lotteries. We had given a Division Bench decision on 10-3-1998 in Writ Petition No. 5733 of 1998 banning all lotteries in U. P. of all State Governments. Thereafter we passed another Division Bench decision on the review application in the same writ peti tion on 25-3-1998 in which we disagreed with the decision of the Gauhati High Court dated 16-1-1998 by which the Gauhati High Court held that the Lot teries Ordinance was unconstitutional. Surprisingly, despite these two Division Bench decisions, the Lucknow Bench of this Court took a contrary view in its orders dated 6-5-1998 and 11-1- 1999. It is settled law that one Division Bench is bound by the earlier decision of another Division Bench of the same Court as held by the Supreme Court in 1989 (3) SCC 396; AIR 1972 SC 51; AIR 1976 SC844; 1989 SCC 337, etc. The Supreme Court has repeated ly held that one Division Bench of a High Court is bound by the decision of an earlier Division Bench of the same Court and hence we fail to understand how the Division Bench of the Lucknow Bench could take a view contrary to the Division Bench decisions of this Court dated 10-3-1998 and 25-3-1998. If the Lucknow Bench disagreed with the decisions dated 10-3-1998 and 25-3-1998, it should have referred the matter to a Full Bench, but it could not itself take a contrary view. It seems that the Lucknow Bench was of the view that the decision of the Gauhati High Court was resjudicata as the State of U. P. was a party before the said Court. It is settled law that the principle or resjudicata applies when a judgment has become final. Since against the judgment of the Gauhati High Court, an appeal was filed before the Supreme Court which is still pending, the judgment of Gauhati High Court is obviously not resjudicata. It is settled law that an appeal is a continua tion of the original proceedings. If an ap peal against a judgment is filed the proceeding becomes inchoate. As such the judgment of the Gauhati High Court is not resjudicata, and hence the subsequent in terim orders of the Lucknow Bench dated 6-5-1998 and 11-1-1999 cannot prevail over the final Division Bench judgments of this court dated 10-3-1998,25-3-1998 and 23-12-1998. We direct that the aforesaid judg ments dated 10-3-1998, 25-3-1998 and 23-12-1998 of this Court be strictly complied with by all authorities in U. P. We may mention that the lives of lacs of people have been spoiled by the evil of lottery and many persons have even committed suicide, as has been widely reported in the press and television. Therefore, this Court cannot tolerate the continuance of this great social evil. It seems that the persons doing this lottery business are indulging in bench hopping, sometimes going to the Gauhati High Court, sometimes to the Lucknow Bench of this Court, and same times to this bench, and all sorts of hyper-technical objections are raised. This is highly objectionable, particularly since the matter is a serious one affecting the lives of a large number of people.
(3.) WITH these observations, this ap plication is disposed off. .;