THE HON’BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE SRI ANIL R. DAVE AND THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE C.V. NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION NO.9507 OF 2009 Dt.17.9.2009 Between: T. Ekambaram … Petitioner And The Government of Andhra Pradesh Represented by its Secretary, Department of Environment & Forest Sciences Technology Department, Secretariat Buildings, Hyderabad and others … Respondents WRIT PETITION NO.12662 OF 2009 Between: T. Ekambaram … Petitioner And The Government of Andhra Pradesh Represented by its Secretary, Industries & Commerce (Mines) Department Secretariat Buildings, Hyderabad and others … Respondents THE HON’BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE SRI ANIL R. DAVE AND THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE C.V. NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION NOs.9507 AND 12662 OF 2009 COMMON ORDER: (per the Hon’ble Sri Justice C.V. Nagarjuna Reddy) The petitioner is common in both these Writ Petitions. He filed W.P. No.9507 of 2009 for a Writ of Mandamus inter alia to direct respondents 1 to 3 and 8 to 12 to protect Bellary Forest Reserve land in S.No.1 of Obulapuram Village and S.No.1 of Hill Block of H. Siddapuram Village, D. Hirelal Mandal, Ananthapur District, and also Honnali Village of Bellary Taluk, Karnataka State. The petitioner also sought for a direction to respondent Nos.17 and 18 to depute their high level officials for survey and demarcation of the leased areas in terms of proceedings dt.22.4.2009 issued by respondent No.5. After this writ petition was entertained, proceedings dt.1.5.2009 were issued by the Government of India, whereby its earlier proceedings dt.22.4.2009 were kept in abeyance. Assailing the said proceedings, the petitioner filed W.P. No.12662 of 2009. While W.P. No.9507 of 2009 was admitted by a Division Bench of this Court, W.P. No.12662 of 2009 was admitted by a learned Single Judge and as the said Writ Petition is connected with W.P. No.9507 of 2009, the same was referred to the Division Bench by the learned Single Judge for being heard and disposed of along with the former Writ Petition. That is how both these cases have come up before us for hearing and disposal. The petitioner claims to be a Mining Engineer. According to him, his father, by name, T. Narayana Reddy, is a lessee of certain extent of land, which is adjacent to the lands in respect of which mining leases were granted to respondents 13 to 16. His main grievance is that in the course of operating their mines, respondents 13 to 16 have not only encroached into the mining area in respect of which his father is holding lease, but also in the reserve forest and destroying the forest. The petitioner pleaded that he approached the Director General of Forests, Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, on 17.9.2008 and also the Central Empowered Committee, constituted by the Hon’ble Supreme Court, through representation dt.6.3.2009 by bringing to their notice the above-mentioned facts and requested them to protect the mining area held by his father and also the reserve forest. The petitioner pleaded that it is in response to the said representations that the Government of India intervened by requesting the Government of Andhra Pradesh, vide its letter dt.22.4.2009 to demarcate leased lands through Survey of India and to keep the mining lease granted in favour of respondents 13 to 16 in suspension pending completion of demarcation work by the Survey of India. As no follow up action is taken by the State Government, the petitioner filed first of the two writ petitions referred to above and as noted hereinabove, the petitioner filed the second mentioned Writ Petition when proceedings dt.22.4.2009 were kept in abeyance by proceedings dt.1.5.2009 by the Government of India. Respondents 12 and 13 filed counter affidavits in Writ Petition No.9507 of 2009 and respondent No.10 filed counter affidavit in Writ Petition No.12662 of 2009. In the view we are taking, it is not necessary for us to refer in detail to the stand taken by the respondents on merits. Respondent No.13 has taken a preliminary objection as to the maintainability of the Writ Petition mainly on the ground that the petitioner has no locus standi and that he has not approached this Court with clean hands inasmuch as he suppressed the fact that his father, who is a leaseholder, already approached the High Court of Karnataka by way of a Writ Petition and that the same is pending. It would be relevant to reproduce the relevant portion of the counter affidavit filed by respondent No.13 in W.P.No.9507 of 2009. “I respectfully submit that the writ petition is liable to be dismissed in limine in view of the suppression of material and crucial facts by the writ petitioner, inter alia the following: (i) The petitioner’s father filed a writ petition being WP.30830/2008 before the Hon’ble High Court of Karnataka and the said writ petition was admitted and there are certain interim directions in the said writ petition. It was specifically contended and stated on oath in the said writ petition as follows: “The Deputy Conservator of Forests by letter – dated nil issued in August 2008 has informed the Range Forest Officer stating that the area will have to be jointly surveyed with police protection. A copy of the said letter is produced herewith as Annexure ‘AK’. This letter fails to take note of the fact that the area has already been surveyed and the existing boundary stones have been damaged at the instance of 10th respondent. Instead of permitting the petitioner to re-erect the boundary stones, the respondents are trying to take up re-survey of the area, which is not necessary at all. Further an attempt to re-survey the land is being done only to protect the illegal mining done by the respondent Nos.9 & 10. Thereafter another letter has been issued by the Deputy Conservator of Forests on 10.9.2008 stating that an independent survey will be taken up by the Forests, Revenue & Mines Department in this regard. A copy of the said letter is produced herewith as Annexure ‘AL’. All these correspondences clearly indicates that the respondents are trying to protect the illegal mining conducted by the respondent Nos.9 & 10 and they are postponing for taking action with the reason to conduct a survey once again. The survey has already been done on several occasions and what requires is to be done is only to re-install the damaged boundary pillars. The photographs indicating the damage caused by the respondent No.9 to the boundary pillars are produced herewith as Annexure ‘AM’. Another photograph indicating the existence of boundary pillar is produced herewith as Annexure ‘AN’.” (ii) I respectfully submit that the writ petitioner deliberately not disclosed several material facts and is trying to play “hide and seek” or to “pick and choose” the facts he likes to disclose and to suppress (keep back) or not to disclose (conceal) other facts. I submit that the counter affidavit/statement of objections filed by this respondent to the said writ petition as well as the statement of objections filed by the then Managing Director of this respondent to the Memo of the then Divisional Forest Officer, Bellary, read with the Inspection Report of the Divisional Forest Officer, Ananthapur, dated 09.07.2007 clearly discloses the illegal activities of the writ petitioner and his family members and the pendency of various criminal cases between the writ petitioner, his family members and the Directors of this respondent Company. The writ petitioner has not filed any of those material documents before this Court.” The fact that the father of the petitioner is a lessee in respect of the lands situated adjacent to the lands for which respondents 13 to 16 were granted mining leases is admitted by the petitioner. The petitioner has also not disputed the fact that his father already approached the Karnataka High Court by filing W.P. No.30830 of 2008 wherein one of the reliefs claimed by him is for appropriate directions to survey and demarcate the land and prevent illegal mining by the private respondents herein. In our considered view, when the leaseholder has already availed appropriate remedy, the petitioner, who claims through his father, who is the lessee, cannot be permitted to pursue another remedy. Sri K. Rajanna, learned Counsel for the petitioner, submitted that the petitioner being a member of the Hindu Undivided Family (HUF), he holds a share in the property of his father and therefore he has locus standi to maintain the present Writ Petitions. We do not find any merit in the contention. Undisputedly the mining lease is a statutory contract. Merely because a person has interest in the properties of a HUF, he cannot claim that he has a privity of contract with the lessor in respect of the mining lease. The petitioner’s right to receive profits in respect of the mines covered by mining lease held by his father does not clothe him with the right to litigate in respect of any dispute pertaining to a statutory lease, with which he is not concerned at all. It is not the case of the petitioner that he was legally authorized by his father, who is a lessee, to espouse his cause on his behalf. Equally it is not his case that he is espousing public cause. Therefore, in our considered opinion, the petitioner has n o locus standi to approach this Court nor to raise a dispute in connection with a lease deed to which he is not a party. If at all, it is the father of the petitioner, who is a lessee, who has the locus standi to seek appropriate relief, if he felt aggrieved by the alleged encroachment by the private respondents into his leased area. Indeed, he has already availed the appropriate remedy before the Karnataka High Court, as noted hereinabove. The learned Counsel for the petitioner placed reliance on the judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Shri Anadi Mukta Sadguru S.M.V.S.J.M.S. Trust v. V.R. Rudani[1] to buttress his contention that he has locus standi to maintain this Writ Petition. We have carefully gone through the said judgment and we are of the view that the said judgment has no application to the facts of the present case. In the said judgment, the Hon’ble Supreme Court has discussed about the scope of Article 226 of the Constitution of India in relation to issue of Mandamus. It was held that if the rights are purely of a private character, no Mandamus can issue and the person should establish that there is an enforceable public duty by the respondents for issuance of a Writ of Mandamus. In our opinion, the petitioner has failed to establish that he has a legally enforceable right to seek a Writ of Mandamus against the respondents for granting the relief claimed by him. For the above-mentioned reasons, both the Writ Petitions fail and they are accordingly dismissed. As a sequel to dismissal of the Writ Petitions, W.P.M.P. Nos.12403, 13758, 14963 and 18687 of 2009 in W.P. No.9507 of 2009 and W.P.M.P. No.16374 of 2009 in W.P. No.12662 of 2009 are dismissed as infructuous. ______________ ANIL R. DAVE, CJ ______________________ C.V. NAGARJUNA REDDY, J 17.09.2009 bnr [1] AIR 1989 SC 1607