IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No. 20048 of 2008 Date of decision : 18.08.2011 Hanek Singh etc. ...Petitioners Versus Financial Commissioner (Appeals) etc. ...Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE RANJIT SINGH Present: None for the petitioner. Mr. N.D.S. Mann, Addl. A.G. Punjab for the State. ***** RANJIT SINGH J. No one is present on behalf of the petitioner. This writ petition is pending since 2008. The prayer made in the writ petition is for quashing of orders, Annexures P-4, P-5, P-6 and P-7 whereby partition of the land in dispute has been allowed. The writ petition came up for hearing on 17.08.2011 but was adjourned to today as none appeared for the petitioner. Gurdev Singh and Gurnaib Singh, respondents No. 5 and 6 respectively had applied for partition of their 1/6th share out of total land measuring 102 kanals 16 marlas. This was located in two Taks separated by a distance of two kilometers. The plea was that one Tak of the land was of inferior quality being in the interior side of the village whereas other one is of the superior quality. The partition if done on the basis of different Taks ordinarily would have resulted in discrimination between the co-sharer. The petitioner had filed Civil Writ Petition No. 20048 of 2008 -2- objection before the Assistant Collector Ist Grade and had pleaded the ground of quality of land being different. The grievance is that the Assistant Collector without considering the objection had passed the impugned order that partition had been done rightly. The appeal was dismissed and so was the fate of the revision. The petitioners, accordingly, have filed this writ petition though earlier Civil Writ Petition No. 3500 of 2008 filed by the petitioners was dismissed as withdrawn with liberty to file a fresh one with better particulars. Normally, the Court could have waited for the parties to appear and make their submissions but the reply filed by the respondents reveals that the petitioners have submitted misleading information. Perusal of the reply would reveal that the petitioners had challenged the same very orders by filing the civil suit. The Financial Commissioner's order was passed on 29.05.2006 and the petitioners had challenged the same before the civil Court. Application under Order 39 Rule 1 and 2 was also filed for grant of interim injunction. This application was dismissed by Civil Judge on 27.09.2008. Thereafter, the petitioners filed an appeal against the same order before the Additional Sessions Judge, Bathinda, who had declined to grant the stay as prayed for by the petitioners. Rather Additional District Judge adjourned the case sine die when he learnt that the petitioners had filed a writ petition before this Court. It is only after rejection of their prayer for grant of interim relief that the petitioners filed the present writ petition before this Court without disclosing these facts. The petitioners, thus, have approached the Court with Civil Writ Petition No. 20048 of 2008 -3- unclean hands and have provided misleading facts. The petitioners, thus, have been able to pursue two separate remedies for the same cause which cannot be permitted. Since the petitioners have made an attempt to mislead the Court, they have dis-entitled themselves for grant of relief in equity. In large number of cases, the courts have held a person dis-entitled to relief when a party approaches the Court with unclean hands. Certainly the petitioners have not approached the Court with clean hands. Reference can be made to the case of Amit Bansal Versus Ashok Kumar AIR 2004 SC 3184 where the Hon'ble Supreme Court had declined to go into the merits of the case when the petitioner approached the Court with unclean hands. Similarly, the Court has held in B. Sirniwasa Reddy versus Karnataka Urban Water Supply and Drainage Board Employees Association and others AIR 2006 SC 3106, that the courts cannot grant relief to a person who comes to Court with unclean hands etc. The writ petition, therefore, is dismissed. August 18, 2011 (RANJIT SINGH) rts JUDGE