Calcutta High Court (Appellete Side)
Union Of India And Others vs Mrs. Medha Moitra And Others on 8 February, 2023
15 08.02. IN THE HIGH COURT AT CALCUTTA
2023 Constitutional Writ Jurisdiction
Appellate Side.
Ct. No. 04
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Ab
WP.CT 126 of 2022
Union of India and others
Vs.
Mrs. Medha Moitra and others.
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Ms. Chandreyi Alam,
Mr. Shaunak Ghosh.
... for the petitioners.
Mr. Kallol Basu,
Mr. Suman Banerjee.
... for the respondents.
The writ petitioners are not aggrieved by an
ultimate decision passed by the Tribunal in the
impugned order but felt aggrieved by the observations
made in paragraph 15 thereof, which, according to the
writ petitioners, has quashed the corrigendum dated 17th
December 2021 and 22nd December 2021 issued by the
office of the Principal Chief Commissioner of Income Tax,
West Bengal and Sikkim Region.
According to the writ petitioners, the Tribunal
exceeded the jurisdiction in impinging upon the
corrigendum treating the same as an order and further
direction to consider the case in the light of the judgment
of the Tribunal situated at Chandigarh is contradictory
and mutually destructive.
At the outset it is submitted that the judgment
rendered by the Chandigarh Bench of the Tribunal has
no applicability in the instant case and further took a
plea that the Tribunal ought not to have quashed the
aforesaid corrigendums by which the marks obtained by
the respective candidates were revised and/or rectified.
The respondents' Counsel vociferously submits that
the writ petition is not maintainable as the order was
passed on consent and in view of an embargo created by
a judicial precedence, the consent order is not amenable
to be challenged.
On the other hand, the Counsel for the writ
petitioners submits that there was no consent given
before the Tribunal and even otherwise the impugned
order can be segregated into two parts; one in relation to
a finding returned by the Tribunal pertaining to the
action of the authorities in publishing the corrigendums
and second component relates to the reconsideration of
the claim of the respondents on the basis of the
judgment of the Tribunal passed by the Chandigarh
Bench. It is, thus, submitted that the first compartment
of the order, which virtually decides the rights of the
parties, can very well be assailed and challenged by filing
a writ petition and if this Court interferes with the said
part of the judgment, the other part of the order being
dependent and/or consequential thereupon would
automatically fall on its own.
Such being the stand taken by the respective
Counsels, an interesting point is raised by both the
Counsels on the meaning and interpretation of the words
and/or the expressions used by the Tribunal, more
particularly, in paragraph 15 thereof. The aforesaid
observations are quoted as under:
"In the aforesaid backdrop, it is felt that the
impugned orders deserve to be quashed and the
matter could have been remitted back for a fresh
consideration.
However, all the counsels agree in unison
that the matters may be disposed of by this Bench
with a liberty to the applicant to seek benefit of the
order passed by the Chandigarh Bench (supra) and
seek withdrawal of the impugned orders in the
light of the said decision, and upon the
respondents to reconsider their prayer for retention
in the same post, in the light of the decisions
supra, particularly the Chandigarh Bench where
under similar circumstances the promote STAs
whose selections were found defective, have been
allowed to continue in the same post upon
relaxation of provisions. There is no allegation that
they failed to discharge their duties efficiently as
STAs."
According to the writ petitioners, the language used
in the above quoted paragraph leads no ambiguity in the
mind of the authorities that the aforesaid corrigendums
have been quashed and set aside by the Tribunal and the
matter was relegated to the authorities for consideration
afresh.
Par contra, Counsel for the respondents construed
and interpreted the language employed in the said
paragraph to the extent that though the Tribunal was of
tentative opinion about the veracity of the corrigendums
but, in fact, did not proceed to quash the same otherwise
the expression "deserve to be quashed" without any
qualifying expressions suffixing the same would be
rendered meaningless.
The cumulative effect of the submissions advanced
by both the Counsels appears to us that the grievance of
the writ petitioners perceived by understanding the
language used in the said paragraph has been
sufficiently taken care of on the basis of the stand of the
respondents.
The moment the parties being the beneficiaries of
the order of the Tribunal have construed and perceived
the tenet thereof, in such a manner, which would remove
the cloud or erase the troublesome factors playing in the
mind of the writ petitioners, there is no necessity of
adopting any other construction except the same.
The resultant effect from the respective stands
appears to be such that those corrigendums/orders have
not been quashed and set aside, but such observation
was a prelude to such course of action, which does not
achieve the ultimate result. The moment those
corrigendums/orders are survived or alive, the
apprehension of the writ petitioners cannot remain nor
such expression should be perceived otherwise than
what has been interpreted and/or understood by the
respondents.
With these observations, the writ petition is
disposed of.
There shall, however, be no order as to costs.
(Harish Tandon, J.)
(Prasenjit Biswas, J.)
