Virendra Pandey vs Union Of India

Heard Mr. Durgesh Goyal, counsel for the petitioner and Mr. Gagan Tiwari, Dy. GA for the State/respondents, Mr. Vinod Deshmukh, counsel for Respondent No.102, Mr. Chetan Singh Chouhan, advocate on behalf of Mr. Ashish Surana, counsel for respondent No.126, Mr. Amit Kumar Sahu counsel for respondent No.135, Mr. Ratnesh Kumar Agrawal, counsel for respondent No.136 and Mr. A. K. Yadav, counsel for respondent No.138.

By filing instant PIL under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner has sought for the following reliefs:-

“10.1 That this Hon'ble Court may be kind enough in issuing a writ in the nature of mandamus, certiorari or likewise any other appropriate writ, commanding and directing the respondents to place all the records related with the issue and the roads about which the pleadings are made in the present writ petition.

10.2 That this Hon'ble Court may be kind enough in issuing a writ in the nature of mandamus,certiorari or likewise any other appropriate writ, commanding and directing any independent high level enquiry by any independent and highly equipped investigating agency under the gracious supervision and control of this Hon'ble High Court, About the commission of alleged offence by government officials and the private respondents, after due invenstigation and enenquiry, all the consequence elections and criminal prosecution may be also ordered by this Hon'ble Court to do complete justice.

10.3 That this Hon'ble Court may be kind enough in issuing a writ in the nature of mandamus,certiorari or likewise any other appropriate writ, commanding and directing the appropriate investigating agency to submit a detailed fact finding report about the offence and responsibility of the persons who have committed the crime as alleged and duly tried to be substantiated by documents as received and procured by the petitioner under RTI Act, 2005, this Hon'ble Court may also be kind enough in issuing a writ in the nature of mandamus, certiorari or likewise any other appripriate writ, commanding and directing to initiate appropriate punitive legal action against the erring persons.

10.4 That this Hon'ble Court may be kind enough in issuing a writ in the nature of mandamus,certiorari or likewise any other appropriate writ, commanding and directing the respondents to recover the complete amount of construction of the road from the erring persons, officers, contractors and all the invovled body from their personal pocket, this Hon'ble Court may be kind enough in issuing a writ in the nature of mandamus,certiorari or likewise any other appropriate writ, commanding and directing to impose heaviest cost on those persons who are responsible for causing willfull damages to the public amount and exchequer, which was the duty of the offices of the State and the contractors also being Indian citizen.”

Facts of the cases in brief are that since the year 2001 to year 2010 the respondent-State and its instrumentalities have constructed the roads under the scheme commonly knows as PMGSY the roads constructed about 26200 k.m. the petitioner has enquired about the constructed and quality of those roads by applying information under the provisions of Right to Information Act, then he knew that all the officers of the executing agency, contractors and the suppliers had involved and worst quality of the road were constructed by misappropriate the public funds and under the conspiracy hatched by all those officers and the executing persons the public exchequer has been put to huge and great loss and now again some work is to be done, which more amount for reconstruction of those roads, hence the present PIL has been filed.

Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the petitioner is fighting against the corruption since 2001, as respondents by hatching conspiracy including Executing Officers/Agencies, Contractors, material suppliers and various stack holders have done mass corruption and thereby they have constructed road of below standard. He further submitted that after collecting necessary documents petitioner has filed 83 criminal cases before the Competent Court against various persons and about 34 cases are yet to be filed.

Learned counsel appearing for the State submits that as has been pleaded by the petitioner in so called PIL that he has already filed 83 criminal cases against private respondents/Contractors before the concerned criminal Court and many cases are yet to be filed against various entities/Contractors. Thus, facts have been averred by the petitioner himself in para 5 of the PIL, as such in these circumstances present petition may not be entertained at this stage, as the petitioner may take recourse to law against the other private respondents/entities.

Having considered the submission made by the counsel for both the parties, particularly considering the fact which has been pleaded by the petitioner himself in para 5 of the PIL that he has already filed 83 criminal cases against various persons in various courts and various cases are yet to be filed against the various respondents/entities/firms, thus, he has already taken recourse to law. Hence, in view of the aforesaid facts and submissions made by the learned counsel for the parties, the present petition is disposed of with liberty to the petitioner to pursue the matter before the Criminal Court concerned, as 83 criminal cases have already been filed by him before the Criminal Court concerned against the private respondents/contractors and some complaints are yet to be filed, as mentioned in para 5 of the petition (PIL).