L.P.A. No. 1345 of 2011(O&M) -1- In the High Court of Punjab and Haryana at Chandigarh L.P.A. No. 1345 of 2011(O&M) Date of Decision: August 16, 2011 Smt. Poonam Devi and others ---Appellants versus State of Haryana and another ---Respondents Coram: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE M.M.KUMAR HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE GURDEV SINGH *** Present: Mr. Naveen Sharma, Advocate, for Mr. Bijender Singh, Advocate, for the appellants Mr. Ajay Gupta, Addl. Advocate General, Haryana for the respondents *** 1. To be referred to the Reporter or not? 2. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? M.M.Kumar, J. The instant appeal under Clause X of the Letters Patent has been filed against the judgment dated 23.3.2011 rendered by learned Single Judge holding that the writ petition was complete misuse of the process of the Court especially when the issue has attained finality as the litigation up to Supreme Court stood disposed of in the year 2006. Accordingly, rights of the parties L.P.A. No. 1345 of 2011(O&M) -2- stood determined as the criteria of selection was upheld by the Division Bench of this Court and the opinion expressed by the Division Bench was approved by Hon'ble the Supreme Court. The opinion of the learned Single Judge emerges from the following para, which reads thus:- “On due consideration of the matter, I find that the instant petition is an absolute abuse of the process of law and is totally misconceived. The action of the respondent State of scrapping the selection having found favour with the Division Bench of this Court and which judgment was approved by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India is now sought to be reversed by the instant petition. The petition clearly is frivolous. How can this Court in exercise of its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, undo the impact of the judgment of the Division Bench, since affirmed by the Apex Court. The reason given by the petitioners for filing this writ petition is absurd. That merely because an official has been exonerated and the Central Administrative Tribunal has revoked his suspension, this should be sufficient to form a persuasive inference that the selection was justified. The Court is extremely incensed at the fact that such an advice should come from a professional lawyer who has advised the petitioners to file the instant petition. The verification to the petition clearly reveals that legal submissions have been made in para 21 on the advice of the counsel which are believed to be correct. The Court can only express its anguish at the existing state of affairs where clearly after the affirmation of the action of the respondents by the Hon'ble Supreme Court way back in 2006, the instant petition is being filed with the same challenge by the very same petitioners on L.P.A. No. 1345 of 2011(O&M) -3- the advice of a counsel. The filing of the petition and the entire exercise of hearing has resulted in the loss of valuable time of the court unnecessarily which wasteful extravaganza the Court can ill afford. The petition is, thus, dismissed with costs of Rs.1 lakh. Rs.50,000/- shall be paid by the counsel namely, Mr.Bijender Singh, Enrollment No.D-207-IA/97, 120, Lawyers Chambers, Supreme Court, New Delhi-I, who has filed the petition by giving such advice and who persisted with his arguments despite the courts patient nudge to make him see reason.” When the appeal came up for hearing, we told Mr. Brijender Singh, the counsel who has appeared in support of the appeal, that notice of motion is confined only to that part of the order where he has been asked to pay ` 50,000/- as costs which are required to be paid by him. We made it clear that the order of the learned Single Judge on merit did not suffer from any illegality and it was indeed misuse of the process of the Court. The learned Single has rightly expressed anguish at the existing state of affairs because even after the affirmation of the action of the respondents by a Division Bench of this Court and by Hon'ble the Supreme Court of India, the appellants were advised by the counsel to file a petition. Having heard learned counsel for the parties and keeping in view the remorse expressed by Mr. Brijender Singh, counsel who has appeared before us on 5.8.2011, we deem it appropriate to delete the payment of ` 50,000/-, to be paid by him as costs subject to one condition that if in future he adopts any such practice in this Court or elsewhere, then the deletion of costs of ` 50,000/- to be paid by him, shall not be deemed to be deleted and this order would stand revived. With the aforesaid observation, order of the learned Single Judge L.P.A. No. 1345 of 2011(O&M) -4- is modified subject to the condition mentioned above, Appeal stands disposed of. (M.M.KUMAR) JUDGE (GURDEV SINGH) JUDGE August 16, 2011 PARAMJIT