A Division Bench held that filing a fresh writ petition after withdrawing a previous one with liberty to challenge constituted bench hunting. The court dismissed the petition as not maintainable.
Petition dismissed as not maintainable due to bench hunting.
This page shows the compact analysis of this judgement. The full analysis — procedural history, issue-by-issue holdings with ratio and obiter, advocates, and paragraph-level evidence for every claim — is being added to the record in batches and will appear here when this judgement has been through it.
Court No. - 39
Case :- WRIT - C No. - 12468 of 2019
Petitioner :- Dheer Singh And Another Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 3 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Saurabh Basu Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Anjali Upadhya,Bhanu Bhushan Jauhari
Hon'ble B. Amit Sthalekar,J. Hon'ble Piyush Agrawal,J.
Heard Shri Saurabh Basu, learned counsel for the petitioner, Shri Pranjal Mehrotra, learned counsel appearing for the newly added respondent no. 5 and the learned standing counsel for the respondents no. 1, 2 and 3 as well as Shri Rishi Bhushan Jauhari holding brief of Shri Bhanu Bhushan Jauhari, learned counsel for the respondent no. 4.
The petitioner in the writ petition is seeking the following reliefs:
"Issue a writ order or direction in the nature of certiorari and quash the impugned notification dated 5.9.2007 and declaration dated 27.2.2008 to the extent of plot no 731 having an area of 0.327 village Gulistanpur Pargana Dadari District Gautambudh Nagar.
ii. Issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of mandamus directing the respondents to release the land of the petitioners and mutate the same in their name.
iii. Issue a writ order or direction in the nature of mandamus directing the respondent no. 1 to comply with the order dated 30.5.2011 (Annexure No.4) passed by this Hon'ble Court in Smt. Rajini's case to release the land of the land owners under section 48 of the Land Acquisition Act.
iv. Issue such other and further writ, order or direction which this Hon'ble Court may deem fit and proper under the circumstances of the case; so that justice may be done.
v. Award cost of the writ petition throughout to the petitioner as against the respondents."
Earlier a writ petition No. 1228 of 2019 (Vijay Singh and others Vs State of U.P. ) was filed in which the petitioner was also one of the petitioners. That writ petition was dismissed as withdrawn by a Division Bench of this court by order dated 21.1.2019. The order dated 21.1.2019 reads as under:
The relief claimed in the earlier writ petition, as quoted in paragraph 20 of this writ petition reads as under:
" a) Issue a writ, order of direction in the nature of Certiorari
and quashing the impugned notification No. 2554/77-407307N/06 dated 5.9.2007 under section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1984 and notification No. 622/77-3-08, 307/-6 dated 27.2.2008 under section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, in respect of the petitioner's land comprising of Khasra No. 681 area 971, hectare 731 Area/0.327 hectare situated at Gulistanpur Pargana Dadari Tehsil Sadar, District Gautambudh Nagar and construction made thereon and the tree planted thereon of the village Gulistanpur, Tehsil Sadar District Gautambudh Nagar (Annexure N.4 to this writ petition)
b) Issue a writ, order of direction in the nature of mandamus commanding the respondents release the land in favour of the petitioners acquired by the respondents by way of illegal acquisition proceeding in pursuance of the notification 2554/77-4-07-3- N-06 dated 5.9.2007 purporting to be under section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act and notification no. 622/77-3-8, 307N/06 dated 27.2.2008 under section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act, read with section 17(1) and 17(4) of the Act for the planned Industrial Development, Khasra No. 681 area .971 hectare and 731 area/0.327 hectare situated at Gulistanpur Tehsil Sadar District Gautambudh Nagar.
c) To issue any other suitable writ, order or direction which this Hon'ble Court may deem fit and proper in the facts and circumstances of the case.
d) To award costs of this writ to the petitioners.
In paragraph 22 of the present writ petition the stand of the petitioner is that he has not given any representation for release of his land and, therefore, his writ petition was wrongly dismissed as withdrawn. If that was the case that his earlier writ petition was dismissed wrongly as withdrawn the petitioner could have applied for recall of the said order which would have been the proper course. The earlier writ petition was allowed to be withdrawn with liberty to challenge the order passed by the State Government on the representation of the petitioner under section 48(1) of the Land Acquisition Act. Perusal of the reliefs claimed in the earlier writ petition, as quoted above, shows that it does not contain any relief for mandamus directing the respondents to decide the petitioner's pending representation, therefore, we find that the relief claimed in the present writ petition is identical to that of the earlier writ petition no. 1228 of 2019 and no new fact or relief has been stated in this writ petition.
We cannot allow the petitioner to file a writ petition seeking certain reliefs and then withdraw the same with liberty to file
fresh writ petition and again to file a writ petition seeking the same relief before another Bench. This would be a case of Bench hunting by the petitioner.
We therefore dismiss this writ petition as not maintainable. Order Date :- 22.4.2019 o.k.
2 issues framed by the court
Whether a writ petition filed after withdrawing a previous petition is maintainable as multiple filings.
Whether the petitioner's claim constitutes bench hunting.
Dheer Singh
State Of U.P.
B. Amit Sthalekar
Piyush Agrawal
As recorded by the court registry
Judgements on the same questions, provisions and authorities, from every court
