IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH CWP No. 11483 of 2009 Date of Decision: 15.12.2009 Union of India ...Petitioner Versus State of Punjab and others ....Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE M.M. KUMAR HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE JASWANT SINGH Present: Mr. Puneet Jindal, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr. Piyush Kant Jain, Addl. AG, Punjab, 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. Challenge in this petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution is to the orders dated 4.12.1987 and 29.9.2008 (P-4 & P-8) whereby the respondents have raised demand of Motor Vehicle Tax in respect of the Vehicles owned by the Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala. A further prayer has been made for restraining the respondents from levying, charging or recovering any type of Motor Vehicle or Token Tax upon the transport, passengers or other vehicles owned by various authorities of the Rail Coach Factory at Kapurthala. Still further a prayer has been made for directing the respondents to refund the Motor Vehicle Tax already CWP No. 11483 of 2009 recovered by them from the petitioner. Having heard learned counsel for the parties and perusing the paper book with their able assistance, it transpires that the dispute in the instant petition is inter se between the petitioner and the respondents, which are statutory bodies. There is no clearance on record from the High Powered Officers' Committee required to be set up for resolving such dispute in pursuance of the directions issued by Hon'ble the Supreme Court in the cases of Oil and Natural Gas Commission v. CCE, 1992 Supp. (2) SCC 432 and Oil and Natural Gas Commission v. CCE, 1995 Supp. (4) SCC 541. Hon'ble the Supreme Court has reminded that the dispute between two public sector undertaking and State has to be cleared by High Powered Officers' Committee. The aforesaid principles were also reiterated in a later judgment in the case of Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. v. Chairman, Central Board, Direct Taxes, (2004) 6 SCC 431. The basic object of referring dispute to the High Powered Committee is to avoid frivolous litigation and also to reach an amicable settlement. It further prevents docket explosion to the already over burdened courts. Similar observation has been made by Hon'ble the Supreme Court in Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd's case (supra), which reads thus: “Undoubtedly, the right to enforce a right in a court of law cannot be effaced. However, it must be remembered that courts are overburdened with a large number of cases. The majority of such cases pertain to government departments and/or public sector undertakings. As is stated in Chief Conservator of Forests case it was not contemplated by the framers of the Constitution or CPC that two departments of a 2 CWP No. 11483 of 2009 State or the Union of India and /or a department of the Government and a public sector undertaking fight a litigation in a court of law. Such a course is detrimental to public interest as it entails avoidable wastage of public money and time. These are all limbs of the Government and must act in coordination and not confrontation. The mechanism set up by this Court is not, as suggested by Mr. Andhyarujina, only to conciliate between the government departments. It is also set up for purposes of ensuring that frivolous disputes do not come before courts without clearance from the High- powered Committee. If it can, the High Powered Committee will resolve the dispute. If the dispute is not resolved the Committee would undoubtedly give clearance. However, there could also be frivolous litigation proposed by a department of the Government or a public sector undertaking. This could be prevented by the High Powered Committee. In such cases, there is no question of resolving the dispute. The Committee only has to refuse permission to litigate. No right of the department/public sector undertaking is affected in such a case. The litigation being of a frivolous nature must not be brought to court. To be remembered that in almost all cases one or the other party will not be happy with the decision of the High-Powered Committee. The dissatisfied party will always claim that its rights are affected, when in fact, no right is affected. The Committee is constituted of highly placed officers of the 3 CWP No. 11483 of 2009 Government, who do not have an interest in the dispute, it is thus expected that their decision will be fair and honest. Even if the department/public sector undertaking finds the decision unpalatable, discipline requires that they abide by it. Otherwise the whole purpose of this exercise will be lost and every party against whom the decision is given will claim that they have been wronged and that their rights are affected. This should not be allowed to be done.” In view of the above, writ petition is disposed of with a direction to the High Powered Committee of the Officers of the petitioner as well as the respondent State to take cognizance of the dispute and resolve the same as per directions of Hon'ble the Supreme Court in cases of Oil and Natural Gas Commissioner's case(supra) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd's case (supra) within four months from the date of receipt of certified copy of the order. The writ petition stands disposed of in the above terms. (M.M. KUMAR) JUDGE (JASWANT SINGH) December 15, 2009 JUDGE Pkapoor 4