2. Mr Ram Kumar, learned counsel for the appellants, inter alia contends that the Letters Patent Bench of the High Court could not have upset a finding of fact recorded by a learned Single Judge on fresh reconciliation of the two documents, arriving at different results than those arrived at earlier by the two courts aforementioned. Though the argument sounds attractive, it does not bear scrutiny. Against the orders of the trial court, first appeal lay before the High Court, both on facts as well as law. It is the internal working of the High Court which splits it into different ‘Benches’ and yet the court remains one. A letters patent appeal, as permitted under the Letters Patent, is normally an intra-court appeal whereunder the Letters Patent Bench, sitting as a Court of Correction, corrects its own orders in exercise of the same jurisdiction as was vested in the Single Bench. Such is not an appeal against an order of a subordinate court. In such appellate jurisdiction the High Court exercises the powers of a Court of Error. So understood, the appellate power under the Letters Patent is quite distinct, in contrast to what is ordinarily understood in procedural language. That apart the construction of the aforementioned two documents involved, in the very nature of their import, a mixed question of law and fact, well within the powers of the Letters Patent Bench to decide. The Bench was not powerless in that regard.
