IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CWJC No.16303 of 2007 CHANDRI DEVI Wife Sukhdeo Prasad Yadav resident of village Baliya Bujurg, Police station Akbarpur Dist. Nawada Petitioner Versus 1. THE STATE OF BIHAR 2. The District Magistrate cum Collector, Nawada 3. Murli Devi wife of Prabhu Prasad Yadav 4. Kunti Devi wife of Shyam Sundar Yadav Both resident of village Baliya Bujurg, Police station and Anchal Akbarpur Dist. Nawada Respondents ----------- 2 06.03.2009 Heard Mr Tej Bahadur Singh for the petitioner, and learned Assistant counsel to learned Government Advocate no. 7. This writ petition arises out of mutation proceedings, and is directed against the order dated 29.5.2007 (Annexure 1), passed by respondent no.2, in Case no. 22 ( R ) 2005/ 62 (R ) 2007 , whereby he has rejected the petitioner‟s revision application for non-prosecution. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the matter ought to have been disposed of on merits, and their absence was for bona fide reasons. Respondents no.1 and 2 have placed on record their counter affidavit and have supported the impugned order. We have perused the materials on record and considered the submissions of the learned counsel for the parties. It appears that the revision application was admitted on 20.12.2005 and lower court records were called for. The same was received on 20.1.2006. 19.10.2006 was fixed for disposal of the matter on which date none had appeared, and it was adjourned to 13.2.2007. None had appeared on behalf of the parties and the revision application was rejected. The restoration application was allowed where after learned counsel for the - 2 - parties did not appear on 29.5.2007 also. It thus appears to me that the petitioner acted with considerable negligence and, therefore, the revision application has been rightly rejected for non-prosecution. The following portion of the judgment dated 7.1.2009 of this Court in Civil Review no. 127 of 2007 (Vidya Prasad Singh vs. The State of Bihar), may be usefully quoted: “It is difficult to recall the judgment in question also in view of growing pendency in courts in India. I am reminded of the conclusion arrived at by Mr Bibek Debroy in his book entitled „In the Dock: Absurdities of India Law‟, that the pending litigations in this country without any addition thereto, will take 324 years for disposal. The following portion of the book by Fali S. Nariman, entitled ‟India‟s legal system: Can it be saved”, are relevant in the present context: “More than one hundred years ago, a law member in the Government of India (Hobhouse) recorded in a minute dated 5 September 1872( On the Bill leading to the Privy Council Appeal Act, 1874) the following observation: In considering what limit should be assigned to the power of appealing, our leading maxim is, that it is the interest of the common wealth to have and end of law suits. No man has a right to unlitimated draughts on the time and money of the public in order to get his private affairs settled as he wishes. The state‟s duty is discharged when it has provided such a reasonable amount of attention and skill and honesty as will satisfy reasonable men that their causes have been decided, erroneously or otherwise, on the merits, and according to the best ability of the judges, and so will prevent them from feeling that resentment of sheer injustice which drives people to take the law into their hands and to wage private war. Upon this principle all laws place some limits to litigation. And so have we placed limits to the power of appealing. Pithily put, and elegantly phrased. The portion about no man having a right to unlimited draughts on the time and money of the public in order to get his private affairs settled as he wished was quoted by Justice Gajendragadkar (who later became Chief - 3 - Justice of India) in one of the early reports of the Law Commission of India, but despite what was so wisely said by Mr Hobhouse and again by Chief Justice Gajendragadkar, our laws continue to provide (by way of appeals, reviews and revisions) unlimited draughts on the time and money of the public in order to get private affairs ultimately settled . For instance, we have now abolished second appeal, and yet lawyers go on arguing endlessly about the maintainability of intra-court appeals under special laws.” The impugned order can not be faulted. The writ petition is dismissed. (S.K.Katriar, J) shahid