THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE GHULAM MOHAMMED AND THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE K.G. SHANKAR W.P.No.26371 of 2010 Date: 22.07.2011 Between: K. Kondaiah .. Petitioner AND The Hon’ble Government of A.P., District Consumer Forum-I, Chandravihar, Hyderabad, and State Consumer Commission, Khairtabad, Hyderabad, and 2 others .. Respondents. THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE GHULAM MOHAMMED AND THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE K.G. SHANKAR W.P.No.26371 of 2010 ORDER (per Hon’ble Sri Justice K.G. Shankar): The writ petitioner seeks for the issuance of a Writ of Mandamus to declare the action of the respondents 1 to 7 in dismissing C.C.No.511 of 2009 as well as FASR No.391 of 2010 and FASR No.1762 of 2010 as illegal, arbitrary and violative of principles of natural justice and violative of Articles 21 and 14 of the Constitution of India and to direct the respondents 1 to 7 to award compensation of Rs.25,00,000/- to the petitioner from the contesting respondent (8th respondent). 2. The writ petitioner conducted the case as a party-in- person. The writ petitioner is a physically handicapped person. He is stone deaf. There was no possibility of verbal communication with the writ petitioner. The writ petitioner is not an advocate. He is a retired employee. We repeatedly requested the writ petitioner either to engage a counsel or to allow the Court to appoint a legal aid counsel to represent the writ petitioner. The writ petitioner declined the offer and wished to conduct the case by all himself. As there was no possibility of our communicating with the writ petitioner verbally, we then requested the writ petitioner to file written arguments. The writ petitioner filed written arguments captioning the same as “final arguments affidavit”. 3. The writ petitioner was an employee of BHEL. He filed a complaint before the Chairman, A.P. State SC & ST Commission to order for the return of some documents from the employer of the petitioner. There was no response from the Chairman of A.P. State SC & ST Commission. The petitioner consequently filed a complaint before the Hon’ble Lokayukta against the Chairman, A.P. State SC & ST Commission requesting the Hon’ble Lokayukta to conduct enquiry and to see that the documents sought for by the petitioner are returned to him. 4. The Hon’ble Lokayukta registered the complaint as C.No.1072 of 2008. Notice was issued to the writ petitioner to explain as to how the complaint was maintainable. The writ petitioner filed his written representation. The Hon’ble Lokayukta dismissed the representation. 5. The writ petitioner wanted to challenge the order of the Hon’ble Lokayukta through an appeal. He consequently approached the respondent herein, who is an advocate. He paid fee of Rs.5,000/- to the respondent. He further paid Rs.1,000/- towards expenses. The petitioner drafted the appeal grounds and handed over the same to the respondent. 6. However, instead of filing of an appeal from the orders of the Hon’ble Lokayukta in C.No.1072 of 2008, the respondent filed W.P.No.7038 of 2009. It is alleged by the writ petitioner that the signature of the petitioner was forged on the affidavit of the writ petition. The writ petition, however, was dismissed at the admission stage itself on 06.04.2009. 7. Considering that the conduct of the respondent was improper, the writ petitioner issued a notice to the respondent. As there was no response to the notice, he laid a case in C.C.No.511 of 2009 before the Consumer Forum. Through the orders dated 04.12.2009, the Consumer Forum dismissed the case of the petitioner in C.C.No.511 of 2009. The writ petitioner then preferred an appeal before the A.P. State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (‘State Commission’ for short), Hyderabad. With the preliminary objection, the appeal was dismissed at the admission stage. Thereafter, the present writ petition is laid. 8. Initially, the writ petition was laid against the respondents 2 to 7 making the judges who passed orders in the Consumer Forum and the State Commission as parties in their personal capacity. The petitioner, however, was subsequently permitted to array them in their official capacity. Consequently, respondents 2 to 7 as they stand now became parties to the case. Respondent No.8 in the writ petition is the original respondent in C.C.No.511 of 2009. 9. It is the contention of the writ petitioner that the contesting respondent (8th respondent herein) is guilty of deficiency of service and that the petitioner, therefore, is entitled to compensation at Rs.10,00,000/-. The origin of the dispute is the complaint of the petitioner before the Hon’ble Lokayukta. The Hon’ble Lokayukha would appear to have dismissed the complaint. It is the case of the writ petitioner that he thereafter engaged the contesting respondent to file an appeal before the High Court of Andhra Pradesh. The entire gamut of the A.P. Lokayukta and Upa-Lokayukta Act does not envisage appeal from an order passed by the Hon’ble Lokayukta. The order of the Hon’ble Lokayukta is final. The only redressal available to a party is to invoke the special original jurisdiction of the High Court of Andhra Pradesh by laying a Writ of Certiorari to quash the orders of the Hon’ble Lokayukta. 10. Consequently, assuming that the petitioner engaged the contesting respondent to file an appeal from the orders of the Hon’ble Lokayukta, there is every justification for the contesting respondent to file a writ petition in W.P.N.7038 of 2009 instead of an appeal since the appeal is not maintainable from the orders of the Lokayukta. The situation did not end there. It would appear that Sri S.R.Ashok, senior counsel appeared on behalf of the writ petitioner herein in W.P.No.7038 of 2009. However, the Division Bench of this Court considered it appropriate to dismiss the writ petition. The W.P.No.7038 of 2009 was disposed of by the High Court on 06.04.2009. The High Court ordered that it would be open to the writ petitioner to ventilate his grievance before an appropriate forum. 11. The order passed by the Division Bench was a reasonable and in fact an appropriate order. However, the petitioner is not questioning the responsibility of the contesting respondent in the orders passed by this Court in W.P.No.7038 of 2009. The petitioner contends that a writ petition ought not to have been filed and an appeal should have been filed as instructed by him. For the reasons already explained by us, an appeal would not lie from the order of the Lokayukta. The contesting respondent therefore was justified in exercising his wisdom to file a writ instead of a non-maintainable appeal. We cannot consider it as a deficiency of service on the part of the contesting respondent. Added to it, when a senior advocate appeared on behalf of the petitioner in the writ petition, the writ petitioner cannot claim that the contesting respondent was negligent in supplying his services and that there was deficiency on the part of the service of the contesting respondent. 12. The Consumer Forum as well as the State Commission rightly dismissed C.C.No.511 of 2009 and FASR No.391 of 2010 on the file of their respective Courts. We see no error in the impugned orders. The impugned orders are justified. The writ petition, therefore, is not meritorious and is accordingly dismissed. There shall be no order as to costs. __________________ Ghulam Mohammed, J ________________ K.G. Shankar, J Date: 22.07.2011 Isn