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Judgment
Aggrieved by the judgment dated 31-3-2016 passed by the learned Single Judge in W.P.(C) No. 283 of 2015 dismissing the writ petition, the appellant is filing this appeal. The appellant in the writ petition was questioning the legality of the recruitment process for the post of Registrar, NIT, Agartala and the advertisement dated 15-5-2015 in connection therewith.
After hearing Mr. A. Bhowmik, the learned counsel for the appellant, and Mr. B. Mazumder, the learned counsel for the NIT, at some length, we are of the firm view that the writ petition filed by the appellant was not maintainable and was rightly dismissed by the learned Single Judge on different ground and on merit. The respondent authorities issued the said advertisement inviting applications from interested Indian nationals for filling up the post of Registrar in the National Institute of Technology. The appellant is an Assistant Professor of Tripura Institute of Technology under the Department of Higher Education, Government of Tripura. He is admittedly eligible for the post and applied for the same by filing a duly filled up application on 30-6-2015. In our considered opinion, the sole question which falls for consideration in this appeal is whether he has the locus standi to file the writ petition. The petition filed by the appellant was neither public interest litigation nor a writ of quo warranto. It may however, be noted that he cannot file a public interest litigation in a service or when he has a personal interest nor can also he file a writ of quo warranto inasmuch as he has personal interest in the post. The appellant cannot also said to be aggrieved person when he is eligible for the post or when his application for the post is not wrongly rejected. Three decisions of the Apex Court come to our mind in so far as the concept of locus standi is concerned, namely, Mani Subrat Jain v. State of Haryana, (1977) 1 SCC 486, Ghulam Qadir v. Special Tribunal, (2002) 1 SCC 33, and Anand Sharadchandra Oka v. University of Mumbai and others, (2008) 5 SCC 217. In Mani Subrata Jain case (supra), the Apex court held:
"9. The High Court rightly dismissed the petitions. It is elementary though it is to be restated that no one can ask for a mandamus without a legal right. There must be a judicially enforceable right as well as a legally protected right before one suffering a legal grievance can ask for a mandamus. A person can be said to be aggrieved only when a person is denied a legal right by someone who has a legal duty to do something or to abstain from doing something. (See Halsbury''s Laws of England, 4th Edn., Vol. I, para 122; State of Haryana v. Subash Chander Marwaha1; Jasbhai Motibhai Desai v. Roshan Kumar Haji Bashir Ahmed2 and Ferris : Extraordinary Legal Remedies, para 198.)"
In Ghulam Qadir case (supra), the apex Court observed:
"38. 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 hyper-technical 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."
We may also refer to the Apex Court in Anand Shardarchandra Oka case (supra), wherein it has been observed:
"11. The learned counsel for the respondents, on the other hand, submitted that the High Court was justified in dismissing the writ petition on the ground that the petitioner was not aggrieved person. The writ petition was not in the nature of public interest litigation (PIL) and when the writ petitioner himself was graduated from the respondent University, his name could be there in the electoral roll. The High Court, hence, refused to enter into larger question. The counsel, however, admitted that there may be certain persons who might have been graduated from other universities and obtained Master''s degree or Doctoral degree from Bombay University and whose names on that ground might not have been registered in the electoral roll. But it was submitted that this is the provision of law; the University has rightly interpreted it and refused to register their names. He further submitted that the constitutional validity or vires of the provision had not been challenged by the writ petitioner. In the light of the statutory provisions, the University decided not to register names of persons who were graduated from other university and no fault can be found against such action. He, therefore, submitted that the appeal deserves to be dismissed.
Having heard the rival contentions of the parties, in our opinion, it cannot be said that the High Court was wrong in dismissing the writ petition filed by the writ petitioner, the appellant herein. It is expressly stated by the High Court that the writ petitioner obtained BA degree from Bombay University. Thus, the writ petitioner was graduated from the respondent University. His name, therefore, can be registered in the electoral roll for electing members of Senate. He was not, therefore, an "aggrieved party". The writ petition was not in the form of PIL and it cannot be said that the High Court ought to have decided the question. To that extent, therefore, the grievance voiced by the writ petitioner is not justifiable."
Need we say more? A valiant attempt has, however, been made by the learned counsel for the appellant to salvage the case of the appellant by placing strong reliance on Ghumal Qadir (supra), M.S. Jayaraj v. Commissioner of Excise, Kerala, (2000) 7 SCC 552 and Xavier P. Mao v. UOI and others, 2007 (2) GLT 87. We have carefully gone through those decisions, but are unable to comprehend as to how they can help the case of the petitioner. The judgment of court of law cannot be read like a statute. It is neither permissible nor desirable to pick out a word or a sentence from the judgment of the court divorced from the context of the question under consideration and treat it as complete "law" declared by the Apex Court.
The offshoot of the foregoing discussion is that the writ petition is not maintainable for want of locus standi and has rightly been dismissed by the learned Single Judge, albeit, on another ground. The parties are, however, directed to bear their respective costs.