Arjun Singh vs State Of Madhya Pradesh

The petitioner, who was the ex-peon of MPERC, has filed the present Public Interest Litigation under Article 226 of the Constitution of India seeking

the following reliefs:-

Issue a writ and call for the entire record pertaining to the instant case for kind perusal of this Hon’ble Court.

Issue a writ in the nature of quo warranto holding that the respondent No. 4 has no authority in continuing as Commission Secretary of MPERC on the ground that

his tenure was extended, for the last time, till 31.03.2020 hence, on the next working day of 30.04.2020(after corona lockdown), he has to be compulsorily repatriated.

His continuation at MPERC is violation of Law. Copy of the aforesaid order of extension dated 29.06.2019 as annexure p/4.

This Hon’ble Court be further pleased to issue a direction in the light of Hon’ble Apex Court judgment passed in Civil Appeal No. 1600/2012 that any officer

of any licensee or Generating Company cannot be allowed to work at MPERC either as Chairman or Member or Officer or Employee or Consultant or Advisor or at

any post whatsoever and such person, if already working at MPERC, shall be relieved transferred and repatriated to their parent department with immediate effect.

This Hon’ble Court be further pleased to issue a direction in light of Hon’ble Apex Court Judgment passed in Civil Appeal No. 14697/215 thereby permitting

the member (Law) to act as Presiding Member (and Acting Chairman) under Section 92(2) of the Electricity Act, 2003.

After hearing counsel for the parties and on perusal of the petition we find that it is a service matter and not maintainable in view of the law laid down

by the Supreme Court in the case of Hari Bansh lal Vs. Sahodhar Prasad Mahto And Others. (2010) 9 SCC 65 5in which, in paragraphs 13,14 and 15

the Apex Court has held as under :-

“13. In Duryodhana Sahu (Dr.) V. Jitendra Kumar Mishra a three-judge Bench of this Court held: (SCC p.281, para 18)

“ …If public interest litigations at the instance of strangers are allowed to be entertained by the Tribunal, the very object of the speedy disposal of service

matters would get defeated.â€​

In para 21, this Court reiterated as under :(SCC p.283)

“21. In the result, we answer the first question in the negative and hold that the Administrative Tribunal constituted under the Act cannot entertain a public

interest litigation at the instance of a total strangerâ€​

In Ashok Kumar Pandey V. State of W.B this Court held thus (SCC pp. 358-59, para 16)

As noted supra, a time has come to weed out the petitions, which though titled as public interest litigations are in essence something else. It is shocking to

note that Courts are flooded with a large number of so called public interest litigations where even a minuscule percentage can legitimately be called public

interest litigations. Though the parameters of public interest litigation have been indicated by this Court in a large number of cases, yet unmindful of the real

intentions and objectives, Courts are entertaining such petitions and wasting valuable judicial time which, as noted above, could be otherwise utilized for

disposal of genuine cases. Though in Durdhayana Sahu (Dr.) V. Jitnedra Kumar Mishra this Court held that in service matters PIL’s should not be

entertained, the inflow of so called PIL’s involving service matters continues unabated in the Courts and strangely are entertained. The last decision. The

other interesting aspect is that in the PILs, official documents are being annexed without even indicating as to how the petitioner came to possess them. In one

case, it was stated that a packet was lying on the road and when out of curiosity the petitioner opened it, he found copies of the official documents. Whenever such

frivolous pleas are taken to explain possession, the Courts should do well not only to dismiss the petitions but also to impose exemplary costs. It would be

desirable for the Courts to filter out the frivolous petitions and dismiss them with costs as aforestated so that the message goes in the right direction so that the

message goes in the right direction that petitions filed with oblique motive do not gave the approval of the Courtsâ€​

d. The same principles have been reiterated in the subsequent decisions, namely, B. Singh (Dr.) V. Union of India, Dattaraj Nathuji Thaware V. State of

Maharastra and Gurpal Singh V. State of Punjab.

The above principles make it clear that except for a writ of quo warranto, public interest litigation is not maintainable in service matters.â€​

In view of the above legal principles enunciated by the Apex Court, learned counsel for the petitioner prayed that he may be allowed to withdraw this

writ petition with liberty to take recourse to all such other remedies as are available to him in accordance with law.

Accordingly, writ petition is dismissed as withdrawn.

However, it shall be open to the petitioner to take recourse to all such remedies as are available to him in accordance with law.

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