Allahabad High Court
Dhanveer Singh vs Deepak Meena, D.M. And 2 Others on 10 August, 2023
Bench: Piyush Agrawal
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
?Neutral Citation No. - 2023:AHC:162434
Court No. - 5
Case :- CONTEMPT APPLICATION (CIVIL) No. - 5713 of 2023
Applicant :- Dhanveer Singh
Opposite Party :- Deepak Meena, D.M. And 2 Others
Counsel for Applicant :- Sunil Kumar Tiwari
Hon'ble Piyush Agrawal,J.
Heard counsel for the applicant.
The present contempt application has been preferred against the opposite parties for wilful disobedience of the writ Court order dated 20.10.2022 passed in Writ C No. 28639 of 2022.
From perusal of the said order, it transpires that neither any direction has been given to the opposite parties nor any interim protection has been given in favour of the applicant-petitioner, which may cause any contempt against opposite parties. Thus, no contempt is made out against the opposite parties.
However, the Court feels that valuable time of this Court should not be wasted by filing such type of frivolous petitions. The Supreme Court in the case of T. Arivandandam v. T.V. Satyapal and another, AIR 1977 SC 2421 has held that frivolous petitions should be nipped in the bud.
The Supreme Court in the case of Subrata Roy Sahara v. Union of India and others, (2014) 8 SCC 470 has taken a judicial note that huge number of frivolous petitions are choking roaster of the courts. The Supreme Court put a note of caution that the High Courts should discourage such type of litigation and should impose heavy costs. In the case of Phool Chandra and another v. State of Uttar Pradesh, (2014) 13 SCC 112 the Supreme Court has held that the High Courts should curb the tendency of filing frivolous petitions by imposing heavy costs on the petitioner and the advocates too. 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 contempt application is dismissed with the cost of Rs. 10,000/- (ten thousands) which shall be deposited by the applicant in the office of opposite party no.1 within one month from today.
It is made clear in the case the cost is not deposited by the applicant within the aforesaid period, the same shall be realized as arrears of land revenue by opposite party no. 1.
The Registrar Compliance shall communicate this order to opposite party no. 1 within a week.
Order Date :- 10.8.2023
Rahul Dwivedi/-
