Allahabad High Court Bars Lawyer's Entry In New Chamber Block As He Filed PILs Opposing Its Construction
Earlier this month, the Allahabad High Court imposed cost of Rs. 40,000, which was subsequently recalled, on a practising Advocate who had filed a public interest litigation seeking action against Larsen & Tubro involved in the construction of the new parking and lawyer chambers block coming up in the HC premises.
The bench comprising of Justice Mahesh Chandra Tripathi and Justice Prashant Kumar observed,
“now it has become a trend to file frivolous PILs just to put undue pressure on the contractors/builders. Time and again in catena of judgments, Hon'ble Supreme Court and this Court has deprecated this practice and directed for imposing exemplary cost on such kind of busybodies, who file PIL for extraneous considerations and ulterior motives. To curb such kind of frivolous petitions, it is mandatory to impose cost to discourage such kind of litigation. Such kind of vexatious proceedings should not be allowed to continue and if anybody engages in doing so, such activities have to curbed down. This is a perfect case where exemplary cost should be imposed on the petitioner.”
Petitioner approached the High Court claiming that the soli mining was being done by L&T for the said construction was being done illegally without taking permission from the Mining Department and without any Environmental Clearance Certificate. It was argued that the project did not account for “sustainable developments”. Accordingly, it was prayed that writ of mandamus be issued initiating inquiry against L&T and blacklisting the company.
Counsel for the respondent objected to the credentials of the petitioner in filing the public interest litigation. It was argued that the counsel appearing for the petitioner had also filed an identical petition earlier, which was dismissed. It was argued that similar cause was being litigated with a different petitioner.
The Court observed that the PIL was filed 2 months after dismissal of the earlier PIL and without disclosing the details of the earlier PIL. It was observed that the petitioner had approached the Court with unclean hands.
“The conduct of the petitioner is not above board and he has not come to this Court with clean hands. Apparently, the entire petition has been filed on the behest of somebody, just to stall the construction of Chamber-cum-parking for the lawyers.”
Dismissing the PIL, the Court imposed a cost of Rs. 40000 on the petitioner which was later recalled. Further, direction was issued that neither the petitioner nor his counsel, Aditya Singh, be allowed to get a chamber or entry into the new Chamber block since they were contesting its construction.
Case Title: Santosh Kumar Pandey v. State Of U.P. And 2 Others [PUBLIC INTEREST LITIGATION (PIL) No. - 2510 of 2022]