Suman Sen vs The State Of West Bengal & Ors
2023 Latest Caselaw 64 Cal

   D/L
Item No. 6
03.01.2023
 KOLE
                               MAT 1423 of 2022
                                     With
                              IA No. CAN 1 of 2022

                                 Suman Sen
                                    -Vs.-
                         The State of West Bengal & Ors.

             Mr. Samim Ahmed,
             Mr. G. Pervin,
                                                        ... for the appellant.

             Mr. Raja Saha,
             Mr. T. Chanda,
                                                               ... for the State.

             Mr. P. K. Dutta,
             Mr. A. Khan,
             Mr. S. Deb Roy,
             Mr. A. Gopal Mukherjee,
                                             ... for the private respondents.

By consent of the parties the appeal and the

application are taken up for hearing together.

A judgment and order dated August 23, 2022,

whereby the appellant's writ petition being WPA 4012 of

2022 was dismissed by a learned Single Judge, is under

challenge in this appeal.

The appellant/writ petitioner approached the learned

Single Judge with the grievance that a caste certificate issued

in favour of the respondent no. 8 by the concerned Sub-

divisional Officer was so issued without following the

guidelines mentioned in the Memorandum No. 1203-

BCW/MR-88/2014 dated 27th July, 2015. The caste

certificate was to the effect that the respondent no. 8 belongs

to a scheduled caste. According to the writ petitioner, the

respondent no. 8 is a Bramhin. By procuring the caste

certificate, the respondent no. 8 contested the election for

the Basirhat Municipality and was declared elected. The

said seat was reserved for Scheduled Caste. The writ

petitioner did not challenge the election of the candidate in

view of Section 75 of the West Bengal Municipal Election

Act, 1994. The writ petitioner challenged the manner in

which the caste certificate was issued in favour of the

respondent no. 8.

The learned Judge noticed that a previous writ

petition had been filed against the respondent no. 8 herein

challenging her status as a scheduled caste candidate. The

Court took into consideration a report filed by the Sub-

divisional Officer, Basirhat and dismissed the writ petition.

Taking into consideration the order passed in the

previous writ petition and also the report of the Sub-

divisional Officer, which was filed in the earlier writ petition,

the learned Judge dismissed the writ petition. The learned

Judge noted that in the earlier writ petition the court already

observed that there was no error on the part of the Sub-

divisional Officer in issuing the caste certificate in favour of

the respondent no. 8. The same issue cannot be permitted to

be reopened at the instance of another person.

Being aggrieved, the writ petitioner has come up by

way of this appeal.

We have heard learned Counsel for the parties. We

see absolutely no infirmity in the order under appeal. The

issue of scheduled caste status of the respondent no. 8 was

decided in the earlier writ petition being WPA 5383 of 2022.

Hence, the learned Judge in this case was absolutely right in

not reopening the same issue.

This apart, we also have serious doubt about the locus

standi of the appellant to maintain the present writ petition.

This is not a public interest litigation.

In view of the aforesaid, the appeal and the connected

application fail and are dismissed.

Learned Advocate for the appellant says that the

appellant has a statutory remedy available to him. If the

appellant is entitled in law to pursue any other remedy, he

will be at liberty to do so.

Urgent photostat certified copy of this order be

supplied to the parties, if applied for, as early as possible.

(Apurba Sinha Ray, J.) (Arijit Banerjee, J.)