Allahabad High Court
Sandeep Kumar Verma vs State Of U.P.Thru.Prin.Secy. ... on 23 March, 2021
Bench: Chandra Dhari Singh
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD, LUCKNOW BENCH
?Court No. - 20
Case :- SERVICE SINGLE No. - 8334 of 2021
Petitioner :- Sandeep Kumar Verma
Respondent :- State Of U.P.Thru.Prin.Secy. Medical,Health & Family & Ors.
Counsel for Petitioner :- Rakesh Kumar Srivastava
Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Gaurav Mehrotra
Hon'ble Chandra Dhari Singh,J.
The petition seeks issuance of a writ in the nature of mandamus directing respondents to provide appointment to the petitioner on the post of X-Ray Technician after extending the benefits of the persons with disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Right and Full Participation) Act, 1995/the Right of persons with Disabilities Act 2016 with effect from an appropriate date along with all the consequential benefits within a shortest possible time stipulated by this Hon'ble Court.
Brief facts of the case are that the opposite party no.4 has issued an advertisement on 03.09.2015 inviting applications for making combined General Selection 2015 for appointments on various posts including the post of X-Ray Technician. The petitioner being eligible applied for the post of X-Ray Technician and he was called for the interview on 10.05.2016. Thereafter he was was declared unsuccessful.
Learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that since the petitioner is physically handicapped person, he is entitled to be given the benefits of Equal Opportunities, Protection of Right and Full Participation Act, 1995 and the Right of persons with Disabilities Act 2016 but the opposite parties have not extended the same to the petitioner. It has also been submitted that the candidates having less merit than the petitioner have been selected but the petitioner has been ignored and not selected. Learned counsel submits that the petitioner had already represented his case but nothing has been done.
Per Contra, Sri Ran Vijay Singh, learned Additional Chief Standing Counsel has opposed the submissions made by the learned counsel for the petitioner and submitted that the letter for interview was issued in the year 2016 and since then the petitioner is sleeping over the matter and after a lapse of more than four years he has approached this court and no justification has been given for not approaching the Court at the relevant time. The writ petition is hit by delay and laches, no satisfactory explanation has been given in the writ petition for condoning the delay and laches, therefore, the instant writ petition may be dismissed merely on the ground of delay and laches.
I have heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the record.
In the instant case, it is admitted fact that the petitioner has knowledge of the fact that he was not selected. It is undisputed fact that earlier the petitioner has not filed any petition for issuance of mandamus or direction which he sought in the instant writ petition. The reasons of delay of about more than four years which is caused in filing the instant writ petition is not explained by the petitioner and merely saying that several representations have been submitted to the opposite parties cannot be a ground for condoning the delay in filing of the writ petition. The writ petition is hit by delay and laches as unexplained.
The Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case reported in 2009 (2) SCC 479, S.S. Balu and another vs. State of Kerala & others pleased to observe as under:
"It is also well settled principle of law that "delay defeats equity". The Government Order was issued on 15.01.2002. The appellants did not file any writ application questioning the legality and validity thereof. Only after the writ petitions filed by others were allowed and the State of Kerala preferred an appeal there against, they impleaded themselves as party-respondents. 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. It is, thus, not possible for us to issue any direction to the State of Kerala or the Commission to appoint the appellants at this stage."
Similarly, the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the matter of NDMC v. Pan Singh reported in (2007) 9 SCC 278 held as under:
"16. There is another aspect of the matter which cannot be lost sight of. The respondents herein filed a writ petition after 17 years. They did agitate their grievances for a long time. They, as noticed herein, did not claim parity with the 17 workmen at the earliest possible opportunity. They did not implead themselves as parties even in the reference made by the State before the Industrial Tribunal. It is not their case that after 1982, those employees who were employed or who were recruited after the cut-off date have been granted the said scale of pay. After such a long time, therefore, the writ petitions could not have been entertained even if they are similarly situated. It is trite that the discretionary jurisdiction may not be exercised in favour of those who approach the court after a long time. Delay and laches are relevant factors for exercise of equitable jurisdiction. (See Govt. of W.B. v. Tarun K. Roy, (2004) 1 SCC 347, U.P. Jal Nigam v. Jaswant Singh, (2006) 11 SCC 464 and Karnataka Power Corpn. Ltd. v. K. Thangappan, (2006) 4 SCC 322).
17. Although, there is no period of limitation provided for filing a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, ordinarily, writ petition should be filed within a reasonable time. (See Lipton India Ltd. v. Union of India, (1994) 6 SCC 524 and M.R. Gupta v. Union of India, (1995) 5 SCC 628).
18. In Shiv Dass v. Union of India this Court held: ((2007) 9 SCC p. 277, paras 9-10)
"9. It has been pointed out by this Court in a number of cases that representations would not be adequate explanation to take care of delay. This was first stated in K.V. Rajalakshmiah Setty v. State of Mysore. There is a limit to the time which can be considered reasonable for making representations and if the Government had turned down one representation the making of another representation on similar lines will not explain the delay. In State of Orissa v. Pyarimohan Samantaray making of repeated representations was not regarded as satisfactorTemplate 72y explanation of the delay. In that case the petition has been dismissed for delay alone. (See also State of Orissa v. Arun Kumar Patnaik, (1976) 3 SCC 579).
"10. In the case of pension the cause of action actually continues from month to month. That, however, cannot be ground to overlook delay in filing the petition. It wold depend upon the fact of each case. If petition is filed beyond a reasonable period say three years normally the Court would reject the same or restrict the relief which could be granted to a reasonable period of about three years. The High Court did not examine whether on merit the appellant had a case. If on merits it would have found that there was no scope for interference, it would have dismissed the writ petition on that score alone."
In view of the above, this Court do not find any good reason to interfere with the matter.
Accordingly, the writ petition is dismissed on the ground of delay and laches.
Order Date :- 23.3.2021
VNP/-
