Court versus tribunal distinction governs special appeal maintainability under the Allahabad High Court Rules.

For Chapter VIII, rule 5, the term "court" was construed as referring to the ordinary hierarchy of civil courts, not to specialised statutory tribunals. The Company Law Board, though vested with judicial and quasi-judicial powers and some civil court-like trappings, was outside that hierarchy and therefore remained a tribunal. On that footing, the special appeal against the single judge's judgment in a section 10F appeal was maintainable.

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Issues: Whether a special appeal under Chapter VIII, rule 5 of the Allahabad High Court Rules, 1952 lay against the judgment of the learned single judge passed in an appeal under section 10F of the Companies Act, 1956, where the underlying order was of the Company Law Board.

Analysis: The relevant inquiry was whether the Company Law Board could be treated as a court for the purpose of rule 5. The statutory scheme showed that the Board was constituted under section 10E of the Companies Act, 1956 as a specialised adjudicatory body with certain powers akin to a civil court, but it was not placed within the ordinary hierarchy of civil courts under section 10. The Board comprised judicial and technical members, regulated its own procedure, and exercised limited deeming powers for specified purposes. The distinction between a court and a tribunal depended on whether the authority formed part of the State's ordinary judicial system and exercised the inherent judicial power of a court of civil judicature. Reading rule 5 in its setting, the expression "court" was used in contrast to "tribunal" and was intended to refer to ordinary courts of civil judicature, not to specialised statutory tribunals, even where such tribunals possessed judicial trappings.

Conclusion: The Company Law Board was held to be a tribunal and not a court for the purpose of Chapter VIII, rule 5, and the special appeal was maintainable.

Ratio Decidendi: For the purpose of special appeal provisions referring to a "court", a statutory adjudicatory body is not treated as a court merely because it exercises judicial or quasi-judicial powers and possesses some trappings of a court; it must form part of the ordinary hierarchy of civil courts.

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