Naresh Kumar and Another vs State of Punjab and Others

Rajiv Narain Raina, J.—The prayer in this petition is for issuance of a writ in the nature of mandamus to the State and to the Deputy Commissioners of Fazilka, and Ferozepur Districts to finalize the departmental inquiry against respondent No. 4/Daulat Ram (Patwari) and one Satpal-respondent No. 5 (Reader to Naib Tehsildar) in a time bound manner and to suspend or dismiss the 4th and 5th respondents during the pendency of the inquiry for acts of misfeasance and tampering with public record with respect to certain sale of land. An FIR was lodged by one Janak Raj Goklaney which was investigated by the police in the Economic Offenses Wing, Ferozepur. The 4th and 5th respondents are the alleged accused in the FIR. On the complaint of said Janak Raj Goklaney, the District Revenue Officer had made an inquiry and submitted report dated 12.9.2007 who had recommended strict disciplinary action against the 4th and 5th respondents. Petitioner No. 1 had made a request under the Right to Information Act, 2005 to the Public Information Officer of the office of the Deputy Commissioner, Fazilka, upon which he was informed that the file regarding the case had been transferred from the office of the Deputy Commissioner, Ferozepur, by letter dated 30.5.2012 and information was supplied that the case is still under consideration and action is being taken. He was further informed that show cause notices were issued by Deputy Commissioner, Ferozepur to Daulat Ram (Patwari) and Santokh Singh Kanugo and their replies have been received and disciplinary proceedings are pending against them; on the spot report is still awaited by the Sub Divisional Magistrate, Jalalabad. The petitioner''s application under the Right to Information Act has not been placed on record of this case only the response. The directions have been sought against the 4th and 5th respondents. The face and identity of the petitioners remains undisclosed in the petition. It is not known who they are and what action do they have with the sale deeds placed on record of this case. The disputed land is said to have been sold by Janak Raj Goklaney to vendee Prithivi Raj. A perusal of the sale deed (P-9) shows that the petitioner No. 1 was witness to the sale deed and one Prithivi Raj the purchaser. It is strange that this material fact has not been pleaded in the petition to enable the Court to examine the locus standi of the petitioners in maintaining this petition before this Court. In the sale deed (P-10), Naresh Kumar is the purchaser and petitioner No. 2-Prithivi Raj, a witness to the sale deed. There is obviously a civil dispute involving the petitioners as vendees from Janak Raj Goklaney. Janak Raj Goklaney has not been impleaded as a party to this petition. In fact, there is not even a formal declaration in the petition as in normally found in the first paragraph that the petitioners are citizens of India and are aggrieved of action or inaction of the State and what their status is in the lis. The petition begins straightway with the narration of facts involving sale transactions mentioned in the FIR registered on the statement of Janak Raj Goklaney without disclosing their involvement in any manner therein. In paragraph 17, it has been mentioned that the petitioners have no other efficacious remedy by way of appeal or revision against the inaction. There is an accusation in paragraph 11 of the petition that even the Sub Divisional Magistrate, Jalalabad is clearly guilty of creating false record to bail out respondents No. 4 and 5 for which action against him is also liable to be initiated. The Sub Divisional Magistrate, Jalalabad, has not been impleaded as a party to this petition to know his response. The State is accused of being in no hurry to finalize the departmental proceedings against the 4th respondent although there a prima facie case against him of misuse of official position and of indulging in underhand criminal actions. In this way five years have gone by, and therefore this petition.

In absence of clear and candid pleadings in the petition to show the true face of the petitioners as persons personally aggrieved, a writ of mandamus would normally not be available for issuance without knowing the motive and objective driving them. A writ of mandamus would not issue merely because it may be lawful to do so. Apart from this, the petitioners have not even asserted that they are persons interested if not persons aggrieved in the relief sought and to what end. They do not assert that they are complainants against 4th and 5th respondents. The rule of locus standi is a rule of standing. Locus standi would normally come to the rescue of persons aggrieved not merely of persons interested. This has nothing to do with the relief which is sought from the Court or the right which is sought to be canvassed in support of the relief, it yet remains a question left in the dark in this petition. If there are triable issues between the vendor and vendee then the sale deeds can be more appropriately questioned before the civil Court. The criminal action launched through FIR would take its course and cannot be made subject matter of this writ petition for any directions. The departmental proceedings against the 4th and 5th respondents is a service law issue strictly between the Government and its employees and the State remains the best judge of what to do or expect from its Patwaris and Kanungos.

Though the rule of locus standi has been diluted by Courts by expanding proportionately the meaning of ''aggrieved person'' it has been so done to provide quick access to justice where issues of life and liberty are involved by invoking Article 21 of the Constitution of India and the larger public issues raised through beneficial public interest litigation in diverse situations. See: State of Uttaranchal Vs. Balwant Singh Chaufal and Others, (Civil) 842 : 2010 (1) Recent Apex Judgments (R.A.J.) 372 : (2010) 3 SCC 402 for this. But such expansion may not be called for in the facts of this case.

Be that as it may, issues of life and liberty are neither involved nor pressed in this petition. This petition appears to me more or less based on some personal hidden agenda or perhaps for settling scores and to that extent the petitioners appear not to have come to Court with clean hands, clean heart, clean mind, clean motive, clean objective and clean intentions so vital and essential to invoke the extra ordinary writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution.

I have heard, learned counsel for the petitioner at considerable length on the issue of locus standi and on non disclosure of interest in the petition. I am afraid he has not been able to cross the hurdles in the way to relief and would confine himself to contend that matters have remained pending for five years against public servants without conclusion for abuse of authority. Abuse of authority by public servants involved in public dealing is a very serious matter which the Court cannot brush aside. I asked the learned counsel to show the faces of his clients and to lift the veil so as to know what they want other than that their representations should be directed to be decided. In the hands of a person who has clear locus standi the overriding public interest may have persuaded this Court to step in but to my mind it would not be good precedent to permit the two petitioners in this case to ignite the jurisdiction of this Court on the relief sought for lack of standing to sue and for reasons which appear to be vindictive, oblique or to try an obtain an order from this Court to be used for collateral purposes this court cannot even imagine today. The provisions of the Right to Information Act, 2005 and responses received under it from Public Information Officers appointed under the Act cannot by itself be made a plank for launching a frontal attack on Government servants when the petitioners are not even complainants of misdemeanour against the 4th and 5th respondents. There may be alternative remedies available to the petitioners under the civil and criminal law which have not been availed of for which reason also this petition deserves not to be entertained.

In Ghulam Qadir Vs. Special Tribunal and Others, , the Supreme Court observed on locus standi and aggrieved person as follows:--

There is no dispute regarding the legal proposition that the rights under Article 226 of the Constitution of India can be enforced only by an aggrieved person except in the case Where the writ prayed for is for habeas corpus or quo warranto. Another exception in the general rule is the filing of a writ petition in public interest. The existence of the legal right of the petitioner which is alleged to have been violated is the foundation for invoking the jurisdiction of the High Court under the aforesaid article. The orthodox rule of interpretation regarding the locus standi of a person to reach the court has undergone a sea change with the development of constitutional law in our country and the constitutional courts have been adopting a liberal approach in dealing with the cases or dislodging the claim of a litigant merely on hypertechnical grounds. If a person approaching the court can satisfy that the impugned action is likely to adversely affect his right which is shown to be having source in some statutory provision, the petition filed by such a person cannot be rejected on the ground of his not having the locus standi. In other words, if the person is found to be not merely a stranger having no right whatsoever to any post or property, he cannot be non-suited on the ground of his not having the locus standi.

In Jasbhai Motibhai Desai Vs. Roshan Kumar, Haji Bashir Ahmed and Others, the Supreme Court observed on locus standi as under:--

This Court has laid down in a number of decisions that in order to have the locus standi to invoke the extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 226, an applicant should ordinarily be one who has a personal or individual right in the subject-matter of the application, though in the case of some of the writs like habeas corpus or quo warranto this rule is relaxed or modified. In other words, as a general rule, infringement of some legal right or prejudice to some legal interest inhering in the petitioner is necessary to give him a locus standi in the matter, (see The State of Orissa Vs. Madan Gopal Rungta, The Calcutta Gas Company (Proprietary) Ltd. Vs. The State of West Bengal and Others, ; Ram Umeshwari Suthoo v. Member, Board of Revenue, Orissa, (1967) 1 SCA 413; Godde Venkateswara Rao Vs. Government of Andhra Pradesh and Others, State of Orissa and Others Vs. Rajasaheb Chandanmull Indrakumar (P) Ltd. and Others, Dr. Satyanarayana Sinha Vs. S. Lal and Company (P) Ltd.,

The expression "ordinarily" indicates that this is not a cast-iron rule. It is flexible enough to take in those cases where the applicant has been pre-judicially affected by an act or omission of an authority, even though he has no proprietary or even a fiduciary interest in the subject-matter. That apart, in exceptional cases even a stranger or a person who was not a party to the proceedings before the authority, but has a substantial and genuine interest in the subject-matter of the proceedings will be covered by this rule. The principles enunciated in the English cases noticed above, are not inconsistent with it.

In the United States of America, also, the law on the point is substantially the same.

No matter how seriously infringement of the Constitution may be said called into question said, Justice Frankfurter in Coleman v. Miller, (1939) 307 U.S. 433" "this is not the tribunal for its challenge except by those who have some specialised interest of their own to vindicate apart from a political concern which belongs to all.

To have a "standing to sue", which means locus standi to ask for relief in a court independently of a statutory remedy, the plaintiff must show that he is injured, that is, subjected to or threatened with a legal wrong. Courts can intervene only where legal rights are invaded. 32 "Legal wrong" requires a judicially enforceable right and the touchstone to judiciability is injury to a legally protected right. A nominal or a highly speculative adverse affect 33 on the interest or right of a person has been held to be insufficient to give him the "standing to sue" for judicial review of administrative action. 34 Again the "adverse affect" requisite for "standing to sue" must be an "illegal effect". 35 Thus, in the undermentioned cases, it was held that injury resulting from lawful competition not being a legal wrong, cannot furnish a "standing to sue" for judicial relief. 36

It will be seen that in the context of locus standi to apply for a writ of certiorari, an applicant may ordinarily fall in any of these categories: (i) "person aggrieved"; (ii) "stranger"; (iii) busybody or meddlesome interloper. Persons in the last category are easily distinguishable from those coming under the first two categories. Such persons interfere in things which do not concern them. They masquerade as crusaders for justice. They pretend to act in the name of pro bono publico, though they have no interest of the public or even of their own to protect. They indulge in the pastime of meddling with the judicial process either by force of habit or from improper motives. Often, they are actuated by a desire to win notoriety or cheap popularity; while the ulterior intent of some applicants in this category, may be no more than spoking the wheels of administration. The High Court should do well to reject the applications of such busybodies at the threshold.

The distinction between the first and second categories of applicants, though real, is not always well-demarcated. The first category has, as it were, two concentric zones; a solid central zone of certainty, and a grey outer circle of lessening certainty in a sliding centrifugal scale, with an outermost nebulous fringe of uncertainty. Applicants falling within the central zone are those whose legal rights have been infringed. Such applicants undoubtedly stand in the category of "persons aggrieved". In the grey outer circle the bounds which separate the first category from the second, intermix, interfuse and overlap increasingly in a centrifugal direction. All persons in this outer zone may not be "persons aggrieved".

To distinguish such applicants from "strangers", among them, some broad tests may be deduced from the conspectus made above. These tests are not absolute and ultimate. Their efficacy varies according to the circumstances of the case, including the statutory context in which the matter falls to be considered. These are: Whether the applicant is a person whose legal right has been infringed? Has he suffered a legal wrong or injury, in the sense, that his interest, recognized by law, has been prejudicially and directly affected by the act or omission of the authority, complained of? Is he a person who has suffered a legal grievance, a person

against whom a decision has been pronounced which has wrongfully deprived him of something or wrongfully refused him something, or wrongfully affected his title to something?

Has he a special and substantial grievance of his own beyond some grievance or inconvenience suffered by him in common with the rest of the public? Was he entitled to object and be heard by the authority before it took the impugned action? If so, was he prejudicially affected in the exercise of that right by the act of usurpation of jurisdiction on the part of the authority? Is the statute, in the context of which the scope of the words "person aggrieved" is being considered, a social welfare measure designed to lay down ethical or professional standards of conduct for the community? Or is it a statute dealing with private rights of particular individuals?

(underlined for emphasis)

This order, however, would not be taken as an approval of delay in finalizing departmental proceedings which is left open without expressing any opinion on the merits being a matter strictly between the State Government and its employees. It would suffice for serving the ends of justice if suo motu a copy of this order is sent to the Financial Commissioner, Revenue, Government of Punjab, Chandigarh for his appropriate action, if required in the matter, in accordance with rules and in his subjective satisfaction of the necessity to interfere at his level. In case he objectively feels intervention is called for, I have no doubt that he would take whatever action justice demands, since it may be that the facts re: delay have not been brought to his notice. In view of the legal position succinctly stated by the Supreme Court in the above judgments, this petition is dismissed for want of locus standi in the petitioners. The right to judicial relief is, therefore denied to the petitioners not being legally admissible to them. I refrain though from imposing costs.