Allahabad High Court
Process & Product Development ... vs Union Of India & Others on 1 December, 2017
Bench: Sudhir Agarwal
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
AFR
Court No. - 34
Case :- WRIT - A No. - 48300 of 2000
Petitioner :- Process and Product Development Centre Employees Association
Respondent :- Union of India and others
Counsel for Petitioner :- G.S. Shrivastava, K.C.Shukla, Sharad Kumar
Counsel for Respondent :- S.S.C., N.P.Shukla, S. Kumar, S.N.Srivastava, V.P. Shukla
Hon'ble Sudhir Agarwal, J.
1. Heard Sri G.S. Shrivastava, Advocate, for petitioner and learned Standing Counsel for respondents.
2. Petitioner is an Association of Central Government employees and has filed this writ petition through its Secretary, who himself is Central Government Employee. Therefore, this writ petition at the first instance is not maintainable before this Court in view of the law laid down by Apex Court in L. Chandra Kumar Vs. Union of India, AIR 1997 SC 1125 (para 93) because petitioner has a remedy to file application under Section 19 of Administrative Tribunal Act, 1985 (hereinafter referred to as "Act, 1985") and this Court cannot entertain writ petition directly in such matters. Apex Court in L. Chandra Kumar (supra) has observed:
"We may add that the Tribunals will, however, continue to act as the only Courts of first instance in respect of the areas of law for which they have been constituted. By this, we mean that it will not be open for litigants to directly approach the High Courts even in cases where they question the vires of statutory legislations ........" (para 93)
3. In view of the law laid down in L. Chandra Kumar (supra) as also in Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan and another Vs. Subhash Sharma, AIR 2002 SC 1295 followed by a Single Judge decision of this Court in Bhaskar Mishra Vs. Union of India and another, 2009 (4) ESC 2355, this writ petition is not maintainable at the first instance since petitioner has a remedy to approach Central Administrative Tribunal under Section 19 of Act, 1985.
4. Counsel for petitioner insisted that this Court should transmit record to Central Administrative Tribunal but could not dispute that there is no provision under which writ petitions filed in 2000 before this Court can be transmitted to Central Administrative Tribunal, therefore, this request is thoroughly misconceived and shows that learned counsel for petitioner has no idea of relevant provisions of Act, 1985. He then submitted that since counter and rejoinder affidavits have been exchanged, therefore, matter should be decided. This shows that learned counsel for petitioner is not able even to understand the observations made in L. Chandra Kumar (supra) wherein Court has clearly observed that it will not be open for litigants to directly approach High Courts.
5. Since this writ petition appears to have been filed on account of clear negligence and lack of knowledge of counsel for petitioner, it is dismissed as not maintainable on the ground of alternative remedy with cost of Rs. 2000/-.
Dt. 01.12.2017
PS
