Srujeet Khuntia Vs State of Odisha

1. Drawing an inspiration from the public notice (Annexure-9) issued by the Additional Secretary, Revenue and Disaster Management Department proposing to change the spelling of several places within the State of Odisha, the present writ petition giving a colour of a Public Interest Litigation is filed by the petitioner seeking the spelling of the City of Cuttack as “Katak” instead of “Cuttack”.

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2. Before we embark our journey of deciding the cause, concern whereof is shown in the instant writ petition, it is pertinent to recapitulate that the petitioner approached this Court for the identical reliefs on earlier two occasions, wherein the first writ petition ended with a blessing of approaching the Government flagging such issue in the form of a representation to be decided by the concerned Government whereas the second writ petition received dismissal at the threshold as it did not involve

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any public element and the public interest litigation in this regard is not maintainable.

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3. As indicated in the first paragraph of the notice, the petitioner gets emboldened with such public notice where the Government took a conscious decision to correct the spellings of several places and trying to convince the Court that the Government have ignored the spelling of the City of Cuttack which ought to have been corrected in the manner as suggested and/or prayed for in the instant public interest litigation.

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4. The counsel for the petitioner vociferously submits that “Cuttack” was spelt as “Katak” in many documents including the certificate issued by the Education Department, the Univerisites and the Colleges having great reputation in the country, and therefore, the Government cannot ignore such aspect and must restore such spelling.

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5. It is within the domain of the Government to take a conscious decision to write the name of a place and in the event the Government thinks that the place has been wrongly spelt, the decision may be taken in this regard which in fact has been taken in relation to several places enumerated within such public notice. The Court should not extend its powers enshrined under Article 226 of the Constitution of India in dealing with all such cases which is within the exclusive domain of the Government nor the Court should use the power conferred upon the Executives/Bureaucrats taking shelter under the

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aforesaid provision. The separation of powers is not only real but also be realized when litigation in the nature of public interest is filed before the Court. Precisely such concept has been reiterated in a preceding public interest litigation filed by the petitioner which was dismissed on such score.

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6. A litigant cannot be permitted to approach the Court raising the same issue (s) and/or concern which has already been decided by the Court unless it invites a recognized right within the parameters of the Constitution. Once a litigation of such nature has already been dismissed with categorical finding that it is within the exclusive domain of the Government whether

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to describe the spelling of “Cuttack” as “Katak”, the present Public Interest Litigation on the self-same cause is not maintainable. It is one of such examples of publicity interest litigation than having a serious concern over the interest of public. The Court must frown upon such fancy litigation which has a sinister motive of gaining the popularity without having any element of a public interest in it. Frequent rejection of the public interest litigation filed by the petitioner has not precluded him from approaching the Court again and again so that at one point of time there may be a change of opinion. The certainty and uniformity in law is the hallmark of dispensation of justice. The Court should not overlook the decision taken in the preceding litigation unless the Court finds a significant and/or

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radical changes in the scenario creating some rights to be agitated using the tool of the public interest litigation. 7. We do not find that the Court can entertain such a public interest litigation, more particularly, when an earlier round of litigation could not yield any fruitful result. We concur with the views expressed by the Court in the earlier writ petition and do not find any element of taking any different decision. Since the petitioner is more interested in gaining some recognition, having remote connection with the public interest, we, therefore, dismiss the instant writ petition with cost of Rs.10,000/(Rupees ten thousand) to be deposited by the petitioner before the Member Secretary, Odisha State Legal Services Authority, Juvenile Justice Fund, Cuttack within a period of two weeks from date. In the event of such deposit, the Odisha State Legal Services Authority shall utilize the said amount for the welfare of the children in need of care and protection. In default, it is open for the Odisha State Legal Services Authority to recover the said amount as permissible in law.

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(Harish Tandon) Chief Justice

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Signature Not Verified

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(M.S. Raman) Judge

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Digitally Signed Bichi Signed by: BICHITRANANDA SAHOO Designation: Secretary Reason: Authentication Location: Orissa High Court, Cuttack Date: 17-Apr-2026 14:51:22

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Srujeet Khuntia v. State of Odisha

Case brief

What is this about?

What did the court decide?

Srujeet Khuntia v. State of Odisha

Case brief

What is this about?

What did the court decide?

What the court decided

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