In the event of a conflict of authority between the judgment of the Full Bench of a High Court (consisting of three or less of the Hon'ble Judges) and a Judgment of Division Bench of the Supreme Court (consisting of three or less of the Hon'ble Judges) which of the above two judgements would have the binding effect in proceedings before a subordinate court in the state of Rajasthan?

The Constitutional Basis of Supreme Court's Binding Authority

Article 141 provides that the law declared by the Supreme Court shall be binding on all courts within the territory of India. This provision is the sole source of the doctrine of precedent in the higher judiciary and it draws no distinction whatsoever based on the strength of the Bench that decided the case; a decision of a Division Bench of two or three judges is as much "law declared by the Supreme Court" within the meaning of Article 141 as a decision of a Constitution Bench of five or more judges. The binding force flows from the institutional identity of the Supreme Court as the apex constitutional court, not from any internal grading of its own Benches for purposes of binding subordinate courts elsewhere in the country.

Why a High Court's Full Bench Cannot Override This

A High Court, including when sitting in its largest possible internal formation as a Full Bench, remains a court subordinate in the constitutional hierarchy to the Supreme Court, and Article 141 subjects every court in the country, without exception, to the law declared by the Supreme Court. The internal convention within a High Court, that a Full Bench decision binds a Division Bench and a Division Bench decision binds a Single Judge, is a matter of judicial discipline and precedent operating within the High Court's own hierarchy and has no bearing whatsoever on the High Court's constitutional subordination to the Supreme Court. No degree of numerical strength within a High Court Bench can elevate its decision above a decision, however numerically modest, of the Supreme Court, since the two hierarchies operate on entirely different constitutional planes; the High Court's internal Bench strength rule governs conflicts within that High Court alone, while Article 141 governs the relationship between the Supreme Court and every other court in India.

Judicial Affirmation of This Principle

The Supreme Court has directly addressed conflicts of this kind and firmly rejected any argument that a larger Bench of a High Court could prevail over a smaller Bench of the Supreme Court. In East India Commercial Co. Ltd. v. Collector of Customs, the Supreme Court held that the law declared by it is binding on all courts in India, and this binding effect operates irrespective of whether the particular Bench of the Supreme Court that rendered the decision was large or small, since it is the institutional pronouncement of the Supreme Court as such, not the size of its Bench relative to some High Court's own Bench, that commands obedience under Article 141.

The principle has also been addressed by various High Courts confronting precisely the scenario posed, where a Full Bench of the High Court had taken one view and a subsequent decision of a smaller Bench of the Supreme Court had taken a different view. The consistent judicial position, reflected for instance in the reasoning of the Allahabad High Court in cases considering this exact conflict, is that subordinate courts and even the High Court itself must follow the Supreme Court's ruling, since Article 141 makes the Supreme Court's pronouncement supreme over any High Court ruling regardless of the comparative strength of the respective Benches; a Full Bench of a High Court has no constitutional authority to bind courts against a subsequent or even a prior ruling of the Supreme Court, however small the Supreme Court Bench.

This is reinforced by the broader constitutional design reflected in Article 227, which vests every High Court with superintendence over all courts and tribunals within its territorial jurisdiction, and Article 226, under which the High Court exercises its writ jurisdiction; these provisions confirm that the High Court's authority, however extensive within its own State, remains subject to and does not compete with the Supreme Court's authority under Article 141, which by its own terms binds "all courts" without qualification, expressly including High Courts themselves.

Application to the Facts Given

Applying this to the specific situation posed, where a Full Bench of a High Court, consisting of three judges, has taken one view on a legal question, and a subsequent Division Bench of the Supreme Court, also consisting of three or fewer judges, has taken a contrary view, a subordinate court in the State of Rajasthan would be bound to follow the Supreme Court's Division Bench ruling. The rationale is straightforward: the subordinate court is bound under Article 141 to follow the law declared by the Supreme Court, and this obligation is not diminished merely because the High Court's own ruling emanated from a Bench of greater numerical strength than the Supreme Court Bench that later pronounced on the same question. The subordinate court owes obedience to the Rajasthan High Court through the ordinary appellate hierarchy and Article 227 superintendence, but that obedience itself operates within, and is subject to, the overriding command of Article 141 that binds the High Court no less than the subordinate court.

Illustration

Suppose the Full Bench of the Rajasthan High Court had ruled, in a matter of statutory interpretation concerning a State tenancy law, that a particular category of tenant was not entitled to a specific protection, and years later a two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court, deciding an appeal from a different High Court on an identical point of law, holds that such tenants are indeed entitled to the protection. A trial court or any subordinate court in Rajasthan, faced with a case raising the same question, would be bound to follow the Supreme Court's ruling and not the earlier Full Bench ruling of its own High Court, even though within the Rajasthan High Court's own internal hierarchy, the Full Bench decision would ordinarily bind smaller Benches of that High Court until formally reconsidered or overruled by an even larger Bench of that High Court.

The subordinate court in Rajasthan would, therefore, be bound to follow the Division Bench judgment of the Supreme Court rather than the Full Bench judgment of the High Court, since Article 141 places the law declared by the Supreme Court, in whatever Bench strength it is rendered, above every court in the country including the High Court itself, and no internal convention of a High Court regarding the relative weight of its own Bench formations can dilute this constitutional command.