JUDGMENT D.G. Deshpande, J.
1. Heard Shri Usgaonkar, Sr. Advocate for the petitioner and Shri S.K. Kakodkar, Sr. Advocate for respondent No. 3. The prayers in the petition are that this Court should direct the respondents to notify area in respect of Sukerkar's mine for regrant and to dispose of the application of the petitioner dated 9-8-1988, which is still pending and further to restrain the respondents No. 1 and 2 from granting prospecting licence and mining licence in respect of the aforesaid area to any other person until the application of the petitioner "Exhibit A" is disposed of.
2. We heard Mr. Usgaonkar at length, so also Mr. Kakodkar. We are disposing of this petition only on the question of delay, laches and negligence because what is borne out by the record is that the respondent No. 3 had filed a writ petition before this Court being Writ Petition No. 327/89, which petition was subsequently allowed to be withdrawn by the Division Benchon 11-10-1989 in view of the Govt. Letter No. 53/153/85-Mines/1874 dated 3-8-1989 received by the petitioner. This letter is on record at page 73 of the writ petition and as per this letter, the Director of Industries and Mines agreed to convert the application of the present respondent No. 3(who are the petitioner in that petition) for mining lease dated 20-12-84 into prospecting licence application.
3. It is also a matter of record that after the respondent No. 3 withdrew their earlier Writ Petition No. 327/89, their mining lease application was converted into prospecting licence application and the prospecting licence was granted in 1989 itself and thereafter, a lease was granted.
4. This petition was filed in 1996, i.e. after 7 years of the grant of the prospecting licence and 5 years after grant of lease to the respondent No. 3. Admittedly, the petitioner are competitors of respondent No. 3 in the business of mining. The fact of presenting (sic prospecting) licence beinggranted to the respondent No. 3 was known to the petitioner, but they chose to wait for 7 years or 5 years before filing this petition.
5. When the petition came up for admission on 30-7-1996, notice was ordered to be issued and in the meantime, the execution of the mining lease in respect of the land in question was stayed. However, this stay was subsequently vacated by the Division Bench consisting of M.B. Shah, the then C.J. and F.I. Rebello, J., on 5-11-1996 by a speaking order. This order vacating the stay was not challenged by the petitioner and, consequently, the lease came to be granted in favour of respondent No. 3.
6. The learned Advocate for respondent No. 3 pointed out that after the prospecting licence, lease was granted to respondent No. 3, respondent No. 3 has spent and invested crores of rupees and, therefore, undoing of all those things by Court's order would cause irreparable loss and may also create complicated questions. Therefore, the petition is liable to be rejected on the ground of delay, laches and negligence.
7. Mr. Kakodkar while pointing out Rule 11 of the Mineral Concession Rules, 1960, as it stood then, contended that as per this rule, application for grant of prospecting licence is to be disposed of within 12 months from the date of its receipt and if it is not so disposed of within that period, it shall be deemed to have been refused. Therefore, according to Mr. Kakodkar if the petitioner applied in 1988, their application stood refused by the deeming provision, within 12 months and since the petitioner did not challenge the said order of rejection as provided in the rules then existing, it has lost its right to agitate the same before this Court now.
8. When questioned, the Advocate for the petitioner admitted that the petitioner did not challenge the said order. However, he tried to rely upon Rule 60 of the Mineral Concession Rules and contended that no notification was issued under that rule and, therefore, there was no question of the petitioner's application being rejected or deemed to have been rejected.
9. This submission is doubt edged weapon because if there is no notification, then the application of the petitioner becomes premature and it does not get right to apply. However, apart from this fact, this is a case where there is inordinate delay and no explanation is forthcoming from the petitioner regarding the knowledge of the petitioner about the decision taken by the Government in favour of respondent No. 3. Our attention was drawn by Advocate for the respondent No. 3 to para 14 of the Affidavit of the Director of Industries and Mines, on page 69 of the record, wherein it is pointed out that the petitioners's applications for prospecting licence dated 9-8-1988 was accompanied by an affidavit of Shri Vaikunt Srinivas Poi Raikar, as the Director of the petitioner company and the said Vaikunt Raikar had applied for a mining lease in his own name in the year 1977 in response to the notification under Rule 59 of the Mineral Concession Rules, 1960 i.e. availability of the mine free for grant. It will thus be clear that the person applying in 1977 was the same Mr. Vaikunt Raikar, who also filed affidavit along with the petitioner's application in 1988. From the submission made by Mr. Usgaonkar, it is also clear that the termination of the mining concession of Sukerkar, from whom the petitioner claims, is a subject matter of challenge before the Apex Court. In view of all these facts, it is clear that the said Sukerkar, the petitioner and the said Vaikunt P. Raikar were all, in fact, aware about the right created in favour of respondent No. 3 from 1989, in pursuance of the permission granted for withdrawal of the petition by the Court on an understanding and undertaking by the Government. But even then the petitioner chose to file this petition after seven years, without any sort of explanation about the delay.
10. As observed by us, the vacating of the interim relief by this Court on 5-11-1996 and the delay of seven years has created right in favour of respondent No. 3 and undoing of all these things on account of negligence and lapses on the part of the petitioner and the delay in filing this petition, will create numerous legal complications.
11. For all these reasons, the petition is dismissed. Rule is discharged. No other as to costs.