THE HON'BLE MR JUSTICE V.ESWARAIAH and THE HON'BLE MR JUSTICE VILAS V. AFZULPURKAR WRIT PETITION No.16624 of 2009 ORDER: (per the Hon’ble Sri Justice Vilas V.Afzulpurkar) This writ petition is filed questioning the order, dated 27- 06-2009, passed by the District legal Services Authority in P.L.C.No.224 of 2009. 2. The 1st respondent herein approached the District Legal Services Authority by complaint in P.L.C.No.224 of 2009 inter alia seeking a direction to respondents 1 and 2 therein to return the log books illegally held by them. Respondent Nos.1 and 2 are the General Secretaries of National Crane Operators and Workers Union (for short “the Union”). The 2nd respondent before the Legal Services Authority in the capacity of Secretary of the Union filed this writ petition. 3. The Legal Services Authority recorded a consent order stating as follows:- “The petitioner and respondents are present and both sides are agreed together to conduct fresh election and act accordingly to New election before A.C.L. at Eluru. Petition is closed.” 4. Questioning the aforesaid order, the present writ petition is filed. 5. Learned counsel for the petitioner contends that what is recorded in the said order is factually incorrect, but on facts the Legal Services Authority has no such jurisdiction to give a direction to conduct fresh election, as the jurisdiction relating to election matters vests only with the civil court. He relies upon a Division Bench judgment of Patna High Court in BOKARO STEEL WORKERS UNION AND ANOTHER Vs. STATE OF BIHAR AND OTHERS[1] in support of the proposition that under the Trade Unions Act, 1926, there is no such provision with regard to election dispute and the only remedy available to the authorities is to invoke the jurisdiction of the civil court. Learned counsel, therefore, states that the impugned order passed by the Legal Services Authority is beyond its jurisdiction. 6. We have considered the aforesaid submission. 7. We are unable to accept the aforesaid contention for the two reasons. Firstly, the order impugned herein, which is extracted above, records the presence of the petitioner and respondents before the Legal Services Authority and the same being a consent order, what is mentioned therein, cannot be disputed by any of the parties by approaching the superior Court. The above legal position is well settled by the following decision of the Supreme Court in STATE OF MAHARASTHRA VS. RAMDAS SHRINIVAS[2], relevant paras 4 to 8 are extracted hereunder:- “4. When we drew the attention of the learned Attorney General to the concession made before the High Court, Shri A.K. Sen, who appeared for the State of Maharashtra before the High Court and led the arguments for the respondents there and who appeared for Shri Antulay before us intervened and protested that he never made any such concession and invited us to peruse the written submissions made by him in the High Court. We are afraid that we cannot launch into an inquiry as to what transpired in the High Court. It is simply not done. Public Policy bars us. Judicial decorum restrains us. Matters of judicial record are unquestionable. They are not open to doubt. Judges cannot be dragged into the arena. "Judgments cannot be treated as mere counters in the game of litigation". Per Lord Atkinson in Somasundaran v. Subramanian A.I.R. 1926 P.C. 136 We are bound to accept the statement of the Judges recorded in their judgment, as to what transpired in court. We cannot allow the statement of the judges to be contradicted by statements at the Bar or by affidavit and other evidence. If the judges say in their judgment that something was done, said or admitted before them, that has to be the last word on the subject. The principle is well settled that statements of fact as to what transpired at the hearing, recorded in the judgment of the court, are conclusive of the facts so stated and no one can contradict such statements by affidavit or other evidence. If a party thinks that the happenings in court have been wrongly recorded in a judgment, it is' incumbent, upon the party, while the matter is still fresh in the minds of the judges, to call attention of the very judges who have made the record to the fact that the statement made with regard to his conduct was a statement that bad been made in error. Per Lord Buckmaster in Madhusudan v. Chanderwati A.I.R. 1917 P.C. 30 That is the only way to have the record corrected. If no such step is taken, the matter must necessarily end there. Of course a party may resile and an Appellate Court may permit him in rare and appropriate cases to resile from a concession on the ground that the concession was made on a wrong appreciation of the law and had led to gross injustice; but, he may not call in question the very fact of making the concession as recorded in the judgment. 5. In Rev. Mellor 7 Cox. C.C. 454 Martin B was reported to have said "we must consider the statement of the learned judge as absolute verity and we ought to take his statement precisely as a record and act on it in the same manner as on a record of Court which of itself implies an absolute verity". 6. In King Emperor v. Barendra Kumar Ghost 28 C.W.N. 170 said, ...these proceedings emphasise the importance of rigidly maintaining the rule that a statement by a learned judge as to what took place during the course of a trial before him is final and decisive; it is not to be criticised or circumvented; much less is it to be exposed to animad version. 7. In Sarat Chandra v. Bibhabati Debi 34 C.L.J. 302. Sir Asutosh Mookerjee explained what had to be done It is plain that in cases of this character where a litigant feels aggrieved by the statement in a judgment that an admission has been made, the most convenient and satisfactory course to follow, wherever practicable, is to apply to the Judge without delay and ask for rectification or review of the judgment. 8. So the judges, record is conclusive. Neither lawyer nor litigant may claim to contradict it, except before the judge himself, but nowhere else.” 8. The same view was reiterated by the Supreme Court in BHAVNAGAR UNIVERSITY Vs. PALITANA SUGAR MILL (P) LIMITED AND OTHERS[3], paragraph 61 thereof is extracted hereunder:- “Before parting with the case, we may notice that Mr.Tanna appearing on behalf of South Gujarat University in C.A.No.1540 of 2002 submitted that various other contentions had also been raised before the High Court. We are not prepared to go into the said contentions inasmuch as assuming the same to be correct, the remedy of the appellants would lie in filing appropriate application for review before the High court. Incidentally, we may notice that even in the special leave petition no substantial question of law in this behalf has been raised nor has any affidavit been affirmed by the learned Advocate who had appeared before the High Court or by any officer of the appellant who was present in court that certain other submissions were made before the High Court which were not taken into consideration. In State of Maharashtra V. Ramdas Shrinivas Nayak this court observed : (SCC p.467, para 4) 4. When we drew the attention of the learned Attorney General to the concession made before the High Court, Shri A.K. Sen, who appeared for the State of Maharashtra before the High Court and led the arguments for the respondents there and who appeared for Shri Antulay before us intervened and protested that he never made any such concession and invited us to peruse the written submissions made by him in the High Court. We are afraid that we cannot launch into an inquiry as to what transpired in the High Court. It is simply not done. Public Policy bars us. Judicial decorum restrains us. Matters of judicial record are unquestionable. They are not open to doubt. Judges cannot be dragged into the arena. "Judgments cannot be treated as mere counters in the game of litigation". Per Lord Atkinson in Somasundaran v. Subramanian A.I.R. 1926 P.C. 136 We are bound to accept the statement of the Judges recorded in their judgment, as to what transpired in court. We cannot allow the statement of the judges to be contradicted by statements at the Bar or by affidavit and other evidence. If the judges say in their judgment that something was done, said or admitted before them, that has to be the last word on the subject. The principle is well settled that statements of fact as to what transpired at the hearing, recorded in the judgment of the court, are conclusive of the facts so stated and no one can contradict such statements by affidavit or other evidence. If a party thinks that the happenings in court have been wrongly recorded in a judgment, it is' incumbent, upon the party, while the matter is still fresh in the minds of the judges, to call attention of the very judges who have made the record to the fact that the statement made with regard to his conduct was a statement that bad been made in error. Per Lord Buckmaster in Madhusudan v. Chanderwati A.I.R. 1917 P.C. 30 That is the only way to have the record corrected. If no such step is taken, the matter must necessarily end there. Of course a party may resile and an Appellate Court may permit him in rare and appropriate cases to resile from a concession on the ground that the concession was made on a wrong appreciation of the law and had led to gross injustice; but, he may not call in question the very fact of making the concession as recorded in the judgment.” 9. Secondly, we are also not prepared to accept the contention that the Legal Services Authority has no jurisdiction inasmuch as the dispute raised before it was not an election dispute nor was it a dispute of such a nature, which was outside the jurisdiction of the District Legal Services Authority. During the hearing of the said dispute, parties have agreed to conduct fresh election and the Legal Services Authority has merely recorded the said consent order of both parties. Mere recording of such consent order cannot be said to be without jurisdiction as it concerns holding of election in future. The decision of the Division Bench of Patna High Court relied on by the petitioner, therefore, has no application to the facts of this case inasmuch as the dispute initially raised is not an election dispute. 10. It is also to be noted that in the complaint before the District Legal Services Authority, the 2nd respondent was described by his name and designation as General Secretary of the Union whereas in this writ petition, he claims to be the Secretary of the very same Union. However, in the present writ petition, though the said Union is shown as petitioner represented by the 2nd respondent before the Legal Services Authority, the 2nd respondent in the writ petition is not shown as represented by the 1st respondent before the District Legal Services Authority. Further, the other respondents 3 to 8, who are workers and operators, who were also present before the District Legal Services Authority, are not impleaded in this writ petition as party respondents. The writ petition, therefore, is bad for non-joinder of necessary parties, who are arrayed before the District Legal Services Authority and on that ground also, the writ petition is liable to be dismissed. 11. In view of the above, the writ petition is misconceived and is accordingly dismissed. There shall be no order as to costs. ________________ V.ESWARAIAH, J ________________________ VILAS V. AFZULPURKAR, J Dated: 13-08-2009 Prv [1] 1995 LLR 725 [2] (1982) 2 SCC 463 [3] (2003) 2 Supreme Court Cases 111