Order dated : 08.09.2022
Writ Petition No.23680 of 2016
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT MADRAS
DATED: 08.09.2022
CORAM
THE HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE S.M.SUBRAMANIAM
Writ Petition No.23680 of 2016
M.P.Devaraj
S/o.(Late) Pattu ... Petitioner
Vs.
1.The Chairman,
Tamil Nadu Electricity Board,
No.800, Anna Salai,
Chennai - 600 002.
2.The Chief Engineer,
North Chennai Thermal,
Power Project,
Ennore, Chennai.
3.State of Tamil Nadu
represented by its
Secretary to Government,
Revenue Department,
Chennai - 600 009.
4.The District Collector,
Thiruvallur District.
5.The Special Tahsildar,
Land Acquisition,
North Madras Thermal Power Project,
No.4, Jeenis Road,
Saidapet, Chennai - 600 015.
https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis
1/12
Order dated : 08.09.2022
Writ Petition No.23680 of 2016
6.The Tahsildar,
Ponneri,
Thiruvallur District. ... Respondents
PRAYER: Writ Petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India
praying to issue a Writ of Mandamus directing the respondents 1 and 2 to give
employment to the petitioner's daughter, by name, Dyana on the representation
dated 24.07.2014 given by the petitioner to the first respondent.
For Petitioner : Mr.R.Prathaban
For Respondents : Mr.A.P.Venkatesh Prasad [R1 & R2]
Mr.S.J.Mohamed Sathik
Government Advocate [R3 to R6]
*****
ORDER
The relief sought for in the present writ petition is to direct the respondents 1 and 2 to give employment to the petitioner's daughter Ms.Dyana based on the application dated 24.07.2014.
2. The petitioner states that the land of an extent of 2 acres and 30 cents belonged to his family was acquired for establishing North Madras Thermal Power Project. The acquisition proceedings were completed in the year 1990. The petitioner and his two brothers were owners of the property and the property https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis 2/12 Order dated : 08.09.2022 Writ Petition No.23680 of 2016 was the joint family property. The two brothers of the petitioner were holding one acre each and the petitioner was holding 30 cents of the land. On account of acquisition, the family of the petitioner suffered. In view of the fact that there was a delay in settling the compensation, the land owners filed W.P.Nos.10245 of 1997 and 5218 of 1996. The High Court passed an order on 16.12.1998 to provide employment and compensation to the land owners. The Electricity Board preferred writ appeals in W.A.Nos.210 and 280 of 1999 and the judgment of the learned single Judge was confirmed by the Division Bench of this Court vide judgment dated 26.09.2003.
3. Learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner made a submission that though the petitioner submitted an application, the same was not considered for long years and the daughter of the petitioner is eligible to secure appointment in the Board and thus, the case of the petitioner is to be considered for appointment under the priority category of land losers.
4. Learned counsel appearing on behalf of the respondent Board objected the said contention by stating that there was a dispute between the petitioner and his two brothers. At the time of passing of the award, the two brothers of the https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis 3/12 Order dated : 08.09.2022 Writ Petition No.23680 of 2016 petitioner made a submission that "M.P.Devaraj, another brother died as a bachelor". Based on the statement given by the brothers of the petitioner, the compensation was settled in favour of the brothers of the petitioner and petitioner has not even received the compensation during the relevant point of time.
5. Learned counsel appearing for the petitioner made a submission that the petitioner submitted complaints before the District Collector, Tahsildar and other authorities and no actions were initiated by them. It is contended that till now, the compensation amount has not been recovered from the brothers of the petitioner.
6. Learned counsel for the respondent Board reiterated that as per the scheme, the Board passed proceedings stating that applications submitted within a period of three years alone are to be considered for providing appointment under the land losers category. In the present case, there is an enormous delay and further, there was a dispute between the petitioner and his brothers and thus, the case of the petitioner was not considered during the relevant point of time. That apart, the other two brothers also made a claim for employment and as per the scheme, only one person is eligible to get appointment in respect of joint family properties. When the property acquired from the petitioner and his https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis 4/12 Order dated : 08.09.2022 Writ Petition No.23680 of 2016 brothers was joint family property, the one eligible candidate from the family may be considered for appointment during the relevant point of time. On account of the dispute or otherwise, no application was received by the family of the petitioner and the application submitted belatedly after a period of three years cannot be considered.
7. Learned counsel for the petitioner furnished a copy of the certificate issued by the Tahsildar, Ponneri, stating that the family of the petitioner lost their family property on account of acquisition of the year 1990.
8. Mere certificate issued by the Tahsildar would be of no avail for securing employment. The Tahsildar certificate is considered as eligibility certificate for availing the priority but the priority appointment can be considered with reference to the terms and conditions.
9. Appointment can never be claimed as a matter of right. Priority in appointment for land losers is a concession. Thus, it is to be granted strictly in accordance with the terms and conditions stipulated under the scheme. It is not as if such appointments under the priority category is to be provided after lapse of https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis 5/12 Order dated : 08.09.2022 Writ Petition No.23680 of 2016 several years. This being the principles to be followed, now after this length of time, the claim of the petitioner for appointment under the priority category cannot be considered. In this regard, it is relevant to rely on the three Judge Bench of the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India in the case of Chairman/Managing Director, U.P.Power Corporation Ltd. and others v. Ram Gopal [2020 SCC Online SC 101], wherein it has been held as follows:
"15. Seen from a different perspective also, it is clear that the Respondent has shown little concern to the settled legal tenets. Even a civil suit challenging termination of services, if filed by the Respondent, would have undoubtedly been barred by limitation in 1990. In a similar situation where the appellant belatedly challenged the promotion of his junior(s), this Court in P.S. Sadasivaswamy vs. State of Tamil Nadu, (1975) 1 SCC 152 held as follows:
"2. ... if the appellant was aggrieved by it he should have approached the Court even in the year 1957, after the two representations made by him had failed to produce any result. One cannot sleep over the matter and come to the Court questioning that relaxation in the year 1971. ... In effect he wants to unscramble a scrambled egg. It is very difficult for the Government to consider whether any relaxation of the rules should have been made in favour of the appellant in the year 1957. The conditions that were prevalent in 1957, cannot be reproduced now. ...It is not that there is any period of limitation for the Courts to exercise their powers under Article 226 nor is it that there can never be a case where the Courts cannot interfere in a matter after the passage of a certain length of time. But it would be a sound and wise exercise of discretion for the Courts to refuse to exercise their extraordinary powers under Article 226 in the case of persons who do not approach it expeditiously for relief and who stand by and allow things to happen and then approach the Court to put forward stale claims and try to unsettle settled matters......"
16. Whilst it is true that limitation does not strictly apply to proceedings under Articles 32 or 226 of the Constitution of India, https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis 6/12 Order dated : 08.09.2022 Writ Petition No.23680 of 2016 nevertheless, such rights cannot be enforced after an unreasonable lapse of time. Consideration of unexplained delays and inordinate laches would always be relevant in writ actions, and writ courts naturally ought to be reluctant in exercising their discretionary jurisdiction to protect those who have slept over wrongs and allowed illegalities to fester. Fence-sitters cannot be allowed to barge into courts and cry for their rights at their convenience, and vigilant citizens ought not to be treated alike with mere opportunists. On multiple occasions, it has been restated that there are implicit limitations of time within which writ remedies can be enforced. In SS Balu vs. State of Kerala, (2009) 2 SCC 479 this Court observed thus:
"17. It is also well-settled principle of law that "delay defeats equity". ...It is now a trite law that where the writ petitioner approaches the High Court after a long delay, reliefs prayed for may be denied to them on the ground of delay and laches irrespective of the fact that they are similarly situated to the other candidates who obtain the benefit of the judgment."
(emphasis supplied)
17. Similarly, in Vijay Kumar Kaul vs. Union of India, (2012) 7 SCC 610 this Court while considering the claim of candidates who, despite being higher in merit, exercised their right to parity much after those who were though lower in merit but were diligently agitating their rights, this Court observed that:
"27. ...It becomes an obligation to take into consideration the balance of justice or injustice in entertaining the petition or declining it on the ground of delay and laches. It is a matter of great significance that at one point of time equity that existed in favour of one melts into total insignificance and paves the path of extinction with the passage of time."
.....
19. It is also pertinent to mention that neither has it been pleaded nor is it apparent from the material on record that the Respondent was unable to approach the court-of-law in time on account of any social or financial disability. Had such been the case, he ought to have availed free legal aid and should have ventilated his grievances in a timely manner."
10. Likewise, in the case of State of Uttar Pradesh and others Vs. Arvind Kumar Srivastava and others [(2015) 1 SCC 347], the Hon'ble Apex Court held https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis 7/12 Order dated : 08.09.2022 Writ Petition No.23680 of 2016 as follows:-
"23) The legal principles which emerge from the reading of the aforesaid judgments, cited both by the appellants as well as the respondents, can be summed up as under:
(1) Normal rule is that when a particular set of employees is given relief by the Court, all other identically situated persons need to be treated alike by extending that benefit. Not doing so would amount to discrimination and would be violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India. This principle needs to be applied in service matters more emphatically as the service jurisprudence evolved by this Court from time to time postulates that all similarly situated persons should be treated similarly. Therefore, the normal rule would be that merely because other similarly situated persons did not approach the Court earlier, they are not to be treated differently.
(2) However, this principle is subject to well recognized exceptions in the form of laches and delays as well as acquiescence. Those persons who did not challenge the wrongful action in their cases and acquiesced into the same and woke up after long delay only because of the reason that their counterparts who had approached the Court earlier in time succeeded in their efforts, then such employees cannot claim that the benefit of the judgment rendered in the case of similarly situated persons be extended to them. They would be treated as fence-sitters and laches and delays, and/or the acquiescence, would be a valid ground to dismiss their claim.
(3) However, this exception may not apply in those cases where the judgment pronounced by the Court was judgment in rem with intention to give benefit to all similarly situated persons, whether they approached the Court or not. With such a pronouncement the obligation is cast upon the authorities to itself extend the benefit thereof to all similarly situated person.
Such a situation can occur when the subject matter of the decision touches upon the policy matters, like scheme of regularisation and the like (see K.C. Sharma & Ors. v. Union of India (supra). On the other hand, if the judgment of the Court was in personam holding that benefit of the said judgment shall https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis 8/12 Order dated : 08.09.2022 Writ Petition No.23680 of 2016 accrue to the parties before the Court and such an intention is stated expressly in the judgment or it can be impliedly found out from the tenor and language of the judgment, those who want to get the benefit of the said judgment extended to them shall have to satisfy that their petition does not suffer from either laches and delays or acquiescence.
24) Viewed from this angle, in the present case, we find that the selection process took place in the year 1986. Appointment orders were issued in the year 1987, but were also cancelled vide orders dated June 22, 1987. The respondents before us did not chalelnge these cancelleation orders till the year 1996, i.e. for a period of 9 years. It means that they had accepted the cancellation of their appointments. They woke up in the year 1996 only after finding that some other persons whose appointment orders were also cancelled got the relief. By that time, nine years had passed. The earlier judgment had granted the relief to the parties before the Court. It would also be pertinent to highlight that these respondents have not joined the service nor working like the employees who succeeded in earlier case before the Tribunal. As of today, 27 years have passed after the issuance of cancellation orders. Therefore, not only there was unexplained delay and laches in filing the claim petition after period of 9 years, it would be totally unjust to direct the appointment to give them the appointment as of today, i.e. after a period of 27 years when most of these respondents would be almost 50 years of age or above."
11. This Court is of the considered opinion that priority appointment is a concession and can never be claimed as a matter of right. It is only a priority and more so, compensation has been settled in respect of land acquired from the family of the petitioner. Beyond compensation, the benefit of appointment is given by way of a concession and such a concession is subject to terms and conditions. As per the conditions, the application must be submitted within a https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis 9/12 Order dated : 08.09.2022 Writ Petition No.23680 of 2016 period of three years from the family to provide appointment to one person. That apart, the land was acquired in the year 1990 and almost 32 years lapsed from the date of acquisition of land from the family of the petitioner. At this length of time, if any such leniency is extended, the same will result in opening of Pandora's box and many such similarly placed persons will also claim appointment after this length of time.
Accordingly, this Writ Petition stands dismissed. No costs.
08.09.2022 Index : Yes Speaking order gm To
1.The Secretary to Government, Revenue Department, https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis 10/12 Order dated : 08.09.2022 Writ Petition No.23680 of 2016 Chennai - 600 009.
2.The District Collector, Thiruvallur District.
3.The Special Tahsildar, Land Acquisition, North Madras Thermal Power Project, No.4, Jeenis Road, Saidapet, Chennai - 600 015.
4.The Tahsildar, Ponneri, Thiruvallur District.
S.M.SUBRAMANIAM., J gm https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis 11/12 Order dated : 08.09.2022 Writ Petition No.23680 of 2016 Writ Petition No.23680 of 2016 08.09.2022 https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis 12/12