Allahabad High Court
Deependra Kumar Singh vs State Of U.P. And 3 Ors. on 18 May, 2017
Bench: Pradeep Kumar Baghel
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
?AFR
Court No. - 4
Case :- WRIT - A No. - 21820 of 2017
Petitioner :- Deependra Kumar Singh
Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 3 Ors.
Counsel for Petitioner :- Shri Chandra
Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Suresh C. Dwivedi
Hon'ble Pradeep Kumar Singh Baghel,J.
The petitioner is an unsuccessful candidate for the Lekhpal Recruitment-2015. He has preferred this writ petition for a direction commanding the respondent no. 3 to provide/ declare the cut-off of O.B.C. category of Lekhpal Recruitment Examination-2015 to the petitioner.
From the record it appears that the petitioner had moved an application under the Right to Information Act, 2005 seeking information regarding his marks and some other information. In response to the said application the information officer has furnished him an information that he has got 63.2 marks in written examination and 8 marks in the interview, vide order dated 24.4.2017. He has preferred an appeal under the Right to Information Act before the State Information Commission, which is still pending. In the meantime the petitioner has instituted this writ petition for the same relief.
I have heard learned counsel for the petitioner and the learned Standing Counsel.
Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the petitioner has been furnished incomplete information as one of the informations sought by the petitioner wasin respect of the cut-off marks in District Jaunpur. The said information has not been disclosed to the petitioner. No other submission has been made.
Learned counsel for the petitioner Sri Vikram Bahadur Yadav submits that in most of the districts cut-off marks has been disclosed in the judgment passed in the writ petitions which have been filed in this Court challenging the same recruitment. This Court in its judgment has mentioned detail facts including the cut-off marks hence the petitioner without any effort to get the information has rushed to this Court. He further submits that his appeal is still pending hence the petitioner is seeking a parallel remedy.
Sri Ravi Prakash Pandey, learned counsel for the respondent no. 2 submits that the petitioner's appeal is still pending before the appellate authority hence this writ petition is not maintainable.
I have considered the submissions of learned counsel for the parties.
It is a common experience that a large number of writ petitions are filed for similar relief by unsuccessful candidates. In the writ petition there is no material to demonstrate that the selection held by the respondents is tainted by any unfairness or illegality in the selection. No allegation of malafide has been made against the respondents who have conducted a recruitment and declared the result.
I have carefully perused the pleadings of the writ petition and the material on record. Not a single malafide has been pointed out in the writ petition regarding the said selection. In my view, the petitioner who is an unsuccessful candidate has indulged in fishing and roving enquiry by filing this writ petition.
In addition to above, the petitioner has already filed an appeal which is still pending thus he is seeking a parallel remedy by filing this writ petition. Reference may be made to a judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of Jai Singh v. Union of India and others, AIR 1977 SC 898, which has been followed in several cases, wherein it has been held that under Article 226 of the Constitution if a remedy has already been availed, parallel remedy cannot be sought.
Besides the petitioner is an unsuccessful candidate. It is a well settled law that an unsuccessful candidate cannot take a u-turn and challenge the same selection in which he has participated unless there is sufficient material to indicate that the selection was tainted by illegality, nepotism or any kind of unfairness or against any statutory rule. No such ground has been mentioned in the writ petition. Reference may be made to the judgments in the case of Dr. G. Sarana v. University of Lucknow and others, AIR 1976 SC 2428; Madan Lal and others v. State of J & K and others, (1995) 3 SCC 486; and, Ramesh Chandra Shah and others v. Anil Joshi and others, (2013) 11 SCC 309.
The Supreme Court in the case of Subrata Roy Sahara v. Union of India and others, (2014) 8 SCC 470 and Phool Chandra and another v. State of Uttar Pradesh, (2014) 13 SCC 112 has held that the High Courts should curb the tendency of filing frivolous writ petitions by imposing heavy cost on the petitioners and the advocates also. Relevant part of the judgment in Phool Chandra (supra) is extracted below:
"12. All these are aberrations in the functioning of the Apex Court of any country. Of late, there has been an increase in the trend of litigants rushing to the courts, including this Court, for all kinds of trivial and silly matters which results in wastage of public money and time. A closer scrutiny of all such matters would disclose that there was not even a remote justification for filing the case. It is a pity that the time of the court which is becoming acutely precious because of the piling arrears has to be wasted on hearing such matters. There is an urgent need to put a check on such frivolous litigation. Perhaps many such cases can be avoided if the learned counsel who are officers of the court and who are expected to assist the court tender proper advice to their clients. The Bar has to realise that the great burden upon the Bench of dispensing justice imposes a simultaneous duty upon them to share this burden and it is their duty to see that the burden should not needlessly be made unbearable. The Judges of this Nation are struggling bravely against the odds to tackle the problem of dispensing quick justice. But, without the cooperation of the gentlemen of the Bar, nothing can be done.
13. It is high time that the courts should come down heavily upon such frivolous litigation and unless we ensure that the wrongdoers are denied profit or undue benefit from the frivolous litigation, it would be difficult to control frivolous and uncalled for litigation. In order to curb such kind of litigation, the courts have to ensure that there is no incentive or motive which can be ensured by imposing exemplary costs upon the parties as well as on the learned counsel who act in an irresponsible manner. {Vide Varinderpal Singh v. M.R. Sharma, 1986 Supp SCC 719, Ramrameshwari Devi v. Nirmala Devi, (2011) 8 SCC 249 : (2011) 4 SCC (Civ) 1, and Gurgaon Gramin Bank v. Khazani, (2012) 8 SCC 781 : AIR 2012 SC 2881.}"
In view of the above, the writ petition lacks merit and is dismissed. However, keeping in view that the petitioner is a candidate and hails from a marginalized section of society, no cost is imposed but he is put on caution that in future if he files frivolous writ petition, a heavy cost shall be imposed upon him.
Order Date :- 18.5.2017
Digamber
