High Court
Case Details
Neutral Citation No. - 2023:AHC:154319 Court No. - 6 Case :- WRIT - C No. - 23186 of 2023 Petitioner :- Gaurav Gupta Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 8 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Deepak Kumar Srivastava Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C. Hon'ble Mrs. Manju Rani Chauhan,J.
Legal Reasoning
Supplementary affidavit filed by learned counsel for the petitioner in Court today, is taken on record. Office is directed to register the same. Heard Mr. Deepak Kumar Srivastava, learned counsel for the petitioner and learned Standing Counsel for the State-respondents. The writ petition has been filed with the prayer to direct the respondent nos.2 &3 to conduct an inquiry against respondent nos.8 and 9 and further prayer to direct the respondent nos.2 & 3 to decide the matter and pending representation dated 16.06.2023 and 17.07.2023, within stipulated period. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the petitioner is living at Village Jakhiya, Gram Panchayat Jakhiya, Block Kalan, Tehsil Kalan, District Shahjahanpur. The petitioner made a complaint against respondent nos.8 and 9 before S.D.M. Kalan, Shahjahanpur, regarding allotment of fair price shop. He has given the details of the criminal cases against the aforesaid persons in the complaint. An open meeting held for the purposes of making a proposal in favour of the candidates, who had applied for allotment of fair price shop, which was reserved for handicapped person, nothing has been done. The petitioner is also one of the applicants and is claiming for allotment for the aforesaid fair price shop. He has moved a representation for conducting an inquiry regarding the credentials of respondent nos.8 and 9 but nothing has been done. Learned counsel for the petitioner, therefore, submits that an inquiry may be conducted with respect to the credentials of respondent nos.8 and 9 and the matter regarding allotment of fair price shop, in question, may be decided accordingly. Learned Standing Counsel as well as learned counsel for respondent no.5 submits that the petition is misconceived as no proposal has been made till date. The petition has been filed in anticipation of the fact that the same is going to be issued in favour of respondent nos.8 and 9. Thus in order to exert pressure to have the fair price shop licence in favour of the petitioner, the aforesaid prayer cannot be entertained.
Decision
Even otherwise, the writ petition has been filed with a prayer to decide the representation, which is not maintainable. In support of his contention, he relied upon the judgment of the Apex Court in the case of A.P.S.R.T.C. & Ors. vs. G. Srinivas Reddy & Ors. reported in AIR 2006 SC 1465, wherein it has been held that a writ with the prayer to decide the representation is not maintainable if there is no statutory provision for filing the representation. Relevant part of the judgment of the Supreme Court reads as under: - "19. There are also several instances where unscrupulous petitioners with the connivance of "pliable" authorities have misused the direction "to consider" issued by court. We may illustrate by an example. A claim, which is stale, time-barred or untenable, is put forth in the form of a representation. On the ground that the authority has not disposed of the representation within a reasonable time, the person making the representation approaches the High Court with an innocuous prayer to direct the authority to "consider" and dispose of the representation. When the court disposes of the petition with a direction to "consider", the authority grants the relief, taking shelter under the order of the court directing him to "consider" the grant of relief. Instances are also not wanting where authorities, unfamiliar with the process and practice relating to writ proceedings and the nuances of judicial review, have interpreted or understood the order "to consider" as directing grant of relief sought in the representation and consequently granting reliefs which otherwise could not have been granted. Thus, action of the authorities granting undeserving relief, in pursuance of orders to "consider", may be on account of ignorance, or on account of bona fide belief that they should grant relief in view of the court's direction to "consider" the claim, or on account of collusion/connivance between the person making the representation and the Representations of daily-wagers seeking authority deciding it. regularisation/absorption into regular service is a species of cases, where there has been a large-scale misuse of the orders "to consider"." Reference may also be made to the judgement of this Court in the case of Daya Shankar Pande vs. State of U.P. and others, reported in 2001(1) AWC 671. Para 15 of the said judgment reads as follows:- "15.The argument of learned counsel for the petitioner is that against the order passed by D.I.O.S. disapproving petitioner's appointment, the petitioner has filed an appeal/representation on 16.3.1999 before the Deputy Director of Education on 14.11.2000 and a direction be issued for deciding the aforesaid appeal/representation. The argument is devoid of any merit for two reasons. Firstly, Second Order under which the appointments on short-term vacancies are made, do not provide for any appeal/representation to the Deputy Director of Education or the Director of Education. The provision of appeal was only in First Order where appointments against substantive vacancies were made. Since the State Government did not provide for any appeal or representation to the educational authorities against short-term appointments, the appeal/representations of the petitioner were not made under any provision of law, therefore, no direction can be issued for deciding the same. The other reason is that First and Second Orders have been deleted with effect from 25.1.1999 and they being no more in existence, any appeal/representation under First or Second Orders could not be made by the petitioner. Further, it having been held that the appointment of petitioner was defective as it had been made without following the mandatory procedure under the Removal of Difficulties Orders no direction can be issued to educational authorities to decide the appeal/representation of the petitioner." In view of the above, the petitioner being complainant has no locus to file the petition. Also such relief cannot be granted as the petitioner does not have any statutory right in his favour to get such representation decided nor there is any statutory obligation on the part of the respondents to decided such representation. Therefore, the writ petition is dismissed as not maintainable. The petitioner is directed to pay a cost of Rs.5,000/-, within two weeks from today, in High Court Legal Services Committee, Allahabad. After the aforesaid order was passed, learned counsel for the petitioner prays not to impose cost upon the petitioner. Prayer accepted, however, learned counsel for the petitioner is expected not to extend any advice to file such frivolous petitions. The writ petition is dismissed as not maintainable. No order as to costs. Order Date :- 2.8.2023 Rahul. Digitally signed by :- RAHUL GOSWAMI High Court of Judicature at Allahabad