NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court , intended by the framers of the Constitution to decide intricate constitutional issues but in practice becoming a mere court of appeal, on Friday sought the Centre's view on re-converting itself into the country's Constitutional Court and setting up four regional National Courts of Appeal PIL filed by advocate V Vasanthakumar said nearly three decades ago, the apex court had recommended to the government indirectly for setting up of courts of appeal in the four regions to allow the Supreme Court to carry out the constitutional mandate of deciding complicated constitutional questions to lay down the law for the country.A bench of Chief Justice P Sathasivam and Justice Ranjan Gogoi asked the Centre and the law ministry to file their responses to the PIL in four weeks though it had initially shown reluctance to entertain the PIL saying, "It is for the government to take a policy decision whether or not to make the Supreme Court the Constitutional Court of the country and consequently, set up four National Courts of Appeal."The bench's decision to entertain the PIL assumes significance since the SC in the past had repeatedly dismissed public interest litigations seeking setting up of regional benches of the Supreme Court, preferably in Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai, to ameliorate hardship of litigants who travel long distances from every nook and corner of the vast country to reach the apex court to appeal against HC judgments.In its judgment in 1986 in Bihar Legal Support Society vs Chief Justice of India, a five-judge constitution bench headed by then Chief Justice P N Bhagwati had said, "The Supreme Court was never intended to be a regular court of appeal against orders made by the high court or the sessions court or the magistrates."It was created as an apex court for the purpose of laying down the law for the entire country and extraordinary jurisdiction for granting special leave was conferred upon it under Article 136 of the Constitution so that it could interfere whenever it found that the law was not correctly enunciated by lower courts or tribunals and it was necessary to pronounce the correct law on the subject."The five-judge bench had further said, "This extraordinary jurisdiction could also be availed by the apex court for the purpose of correcting grave miscarriage of justice, but such cases would be exceptional by their very nature. It is not every case where the apex court finds that some injustice has been done that it would grant special leave and interfere."That would be converting the apex court into a regular court of appeal and moreover, by so doing, it would soon be reduced to a position where it will find itself unable to remedy any injustice at all on account of the tremendous backlog of cases which is bound to accumulate."