IN THE HIGH COURT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH, SHIMLA CWP No: 2773 of 2009 Date of decision: 9.4.2010 Charan Dass …Petitioner Versus State of H.P and others …Respondents. Coram The Hon’ble Mr.Justice Deepak Gupta, J. The Hon’ble Mr. Justice Sanjay Karol, J. Whether approved for reporting?1 NO. For the petitioner: Mr. Naresh Kaul, Advocate. For the respondents : Mr. Vivek Singh Thakur, Addl. Advocate General. No.1 to 4 and 6 For the respondent No.5 Mr. Anil Chauhan, Advocate. Dr. Nagin Nanda, Member Secretary, Polution Control Board. For the respondent No.7 Mr. Rakesh Jaswal, Advocate For the respondents Mr. Subhash Sharma, Advocate No. 8 and 9. Per Deepak Gupta, J This writ petition is being disposed of on a preliminary submission. The grievance of the petitioner is that he is working as Chowkidar in village Kalruhi and has filed this petition in public interest. According to him the stone crusher being set-up by respondent No.8 and 1 Whether the reporters of the local papers may be allowed to see the Judgment? yes. 2 9 is being set up in violation of all rules and regulations. During the course of hearing an application under Order 6 Rule 17 was filed in which it is alleged that the mining has been permitted on the banks of the river which is not permissible under the River/Stream Bed Mining Policy and therefore, it is prayed that a writ be issued canceling the mining lease issued in favour of the petitioner. Another allegation is that land comprised in Khasra No. 514 and 735 has been acquired by the Railway Department and therefore, there can be no mining on these Khasra numbers. Even the respondents have stated that since the land comprised in these Khasra numbers stands acquired by the Railway Department they shall not extract mines and minerals from the aforesaid two khasra numbers. The stand of the respondents is that the petition has not been filed by the petitioner in public interest but at the behest of one Shri Vasdev who had filed a suit on almost identical grounds in the Court of learned Senior Sub Judge (Junior Division), Amb, in which an application for interim relief had also been 3 filed but the same was dismissed on 22nd May, 2009 and the appeal filed by Vasdev in the Court of the learned Addl. District Judge (Fast Track Court), Una was dismissed on 26.6.2009. Soon thereafter the present petition was filed on 17th August, 2009. Admittedly, the petitioner is a Chowkidar in the same village. If he is so much of a public minded person he would not have been unaware of the fact that the private respondents had approached the State for grant of mining lease. The mining lease was admittedly granted in favour of the private respondent on 21.2.2009 much prior to the filing of the present petition. Vasdev had filed a suit in the Court of the learned Sub Judge in February, 2008 prior to the grant of the mining lease. The learned Sub Judge after going through the entire record came to the conclusion that the plaintiff had concealed material facts from the Court and had not made out any case for grant of injunction and refused to grant the same. One of the grounds was that the plaintiff and his brother owns a stone crusher in the very same area and therefore, it was a case of business rivalry and not of public interest. The 4 learned Appellate Court held that Vasdev plaintiff in the suit had to admit the fact that his brother had installed a crusher on land bearing Khasra No.502. In this petition the petitioner has not complained about the crusher set up by Shri Vasdev or his brother Ram Prakash. His only complaint is about the stone crusher being set up by respondents 8 and 9. In the application filed one of the grievances is that mining has been permitted on the banks of the Khad which is in violation of the River/Stream Bed Policy framed by the Government. Alongwith this amended petition a map Annexure P- 5 has been filed in which Khasra No. 502 is also shown to be a bank of the Khad. Despite specific objections having been taken in the reply that the petition has not been filed in the public interest the petitioner did not deem it fit to implead Rakesh Kumar as a party respondent in the writ petition. As per the maps filed by the petitioner the crusher of Rakesh Kumar is situated on the bank of the Khad. This clearly demonstrates that the petition has been filed at the instance of Vasdev or Rakesh Kumar. This 5 is not a public interest litigation and is hence dismissed. We would have normally imposed very heavy costs in this case but in our view the petitioner who is a poor Chowkidar is only a pawn in the hands of Vasdev and his brother Rakesh Kumar, who are not parties to the petition. Therefore, no costs are imposed but the petitioner is warned that in case he files any other so called public interest litigation on the behest of others he shall be dealt with severely. While dismissing the petition we make it clear that as admitted by the private respondents they shall have no right of mining on Khasra Nos. 514 and 735. The petition is dismissed. ( Deepak Gupta ), J. 9th April, 2010 (Sanjay Karol), J. ™