Case: M/S. Popcorn Entertainment  Vs. City Indl. Dev. Corpn.

special leave petition and its accompaniments and list of dates which are inconsistent with and contrary to what is stated hereinabove and as if the same has been expressly traversed and denied. He would, therefore, submit that the appeal is devoid of merits and hence deserves to be dismissed at the threshold in the interest of justice and prayed accordingly. It was further submitted that in case this Court were to remit the matter back to the High Court for fresh disposal, the same writ petition be restored to its original No. along with the pleadings which were already complete with a direction to the High Court to decide the same in a time-bound manner preferably within a short period. We have given our careful consideration to the rival submissions made by the respective counsel appearing on either side. In our opinion, the High Court has committed a grave mistake by relegating the appellant to the alternative remedy when clearly in terms of the law laid down by this Court, this was a fit case in which the High Court should have exercised its jurisdiction in order to consider and grant relief to the respective parties. In our opinion, in the instant case, 3 of the 4 grounds on which writ petitions can be entertained in contractual matter were made out and hence it was completely wrong by the High Court to dismiss the writ petitions. In the instant case, 3 grounds as referred to in Whirlpool Corpn. (supra) has been made out and accordingly the writ petition was clearly maintainable and the High Court has committed an error in relegating the appellant to the civil court. It is also pertinent to notice when the allotment was made in favour of the appellant there was no entertainment facility available in the area and CIDCO in its endeavour to do proper planned development of the area was obliged to provide for entertainment for the residents. CIDCO in fact had put an advertisement for tender for various other plots for the said purpose and upon getting no response to the advertisement, CIDCO approved the allotment in favour of the appellant on first come first serve basis. It is not the case of CIDCO or by any other private party that any other application was made prior in time to the application made by the appellants for the same plot and hence the allotment in favour of the appellant cannot be faulted in any manner. It has been held by several decisions of this Court that while developing a new township the objective of the planning authorities is not to earn money but to provide for systematic and all-round development of the area so that the purpose of setting up the township is achieved by more and more people wanting to live in the area in view of the various amenities being provided in the area. Considering this objective in mind, we are of the view that the allotment made in favour of the appellants cannot be faulted with and this Court will accordingly set aside the orders of CIDCO seeking to resile from a concluded contract in favour of the appellants.15. It is also pertinent to mention that CIDCO in the show cause notice has taken the ground of non-issuance of tender as the only basis for cancelling the allotment and CIDCO in the final order has also confined itself to the non-issuance of tender as the ground for cancellation but in the reply to the writ petition, CIDCO is seeking to add further grounds to justify the order of cancellation, which is clearly not permissible in terms of the law laid down by this Court in several of its decisions. Learned counsel for the appellant submitted that since all the pleadings, records, annexures filed before the High Court and also of this Court is available before this Court, this Court may dispose of the same on merits without remitting the matter to the High Court for fresh disposal as suggested by learned senior counsel for respondent No.1. It is true that all the records, documents, annexures are available before us. At the same time, the High Court had no occasion to consider all these rival submissions and to render a categorical finding on all the issues. The High Court has disposed of the writ petition only on the ground of availability of alternative remedy. The High Court has not recorded its finding on the merits of the rival claim. Since elaborate arguments were advanced by learned senior counsel for the appellant and countered by learned senior counsel for the respondent, we extracted the entire argument in extenso in order to enable the High Court to consider all the above submissions made by both the parties on merits and dispose of the same within a period of 6 weeks from the date of receipt of this judgment. As already noticed the request for allotment of construction of multiplex was made on 18.05.2004 and the allotment was made by the Boards Resolution dated 03.06.2004. It is also a matter of record that both the appellants in the civil appeals have deposited several crores of rupees as and when directed by respondent No.1. It is also pertinent to notice that commencement certificate to the appellants permitting them to start the construction was also made on 28.02.2005. However, the show cause notice was issued in July, 2005 and the allotment was cancelled subsequently which was challenged in the writ petition in the year 2006. Since the matter is pending for a very long time before the High Court and also of this Court, we feel just and proper to request the High Court to restore both the writ petitions No. 9467/2005 and 9468/2005 to its original No. along with the pleadings which were already complete and request the High Court to decide the same in a time bound manner preferably and on priority basis within 6 weeks from the date of receipt of this judgment.

Decision (1 = appeal accepted, 0 = rejected): 1

Explanation:
1[ds]In our opinion, the High Court has committed a grave mistake by relegating the appellant to the alternative remedy when clearly in terms of the law laid down by this Court, this was a fit case in which the High Court should have exercised its jurisdiction in order to consider and grant relief to the respective parties. In our opinion, in the instant case, 3 of the 4 grounds on which writ petitions can be entertained in contractual matter were made out and hence it was completely wrong by the High Court to dismiss the writ petitions. In the instant case, 3 grounds as referred to in Whirlpool Corpn. (supra) has been made out and accordingly the writ petition was clearly maintainable and the High Court has committed an error in relegating the appellant to the civil court. It is also pertinent to notice when the allotment was made in favour of the appellant there was no entertainment facility available in the area and CIDCO in its endeavour to do proper planned development of the area was obliged to provide for entertainment for the residents. CIDCO in fact had put an advertisement for tender for various other plots for the said purpose and upon getting no response to the advertisement, CIDCO approved the allotment in favour of the appellant on first come first serve basis. It is not the case of CIDCO or by any other private party that any other application was made prior in time to the application made by the appellants for the same plot and hence the allotment in favour of the appellant cannot be faulted in any manner. It has been held by several decisions of this Court that while developing a new township the objective of the planning authorities is not to earn money but to provide for systematic anddevelopment of the area so that the purpose of setting up the township is achieved by more and more people wanting to live in the area in view of the various amenities being provided in the area. Considering this objective in mind, we are of the view that the allotment made in favour of the appellants cannot be faulted with and this Court will accordingly set aside the orders of CIDCO seeking to resile from a concluded contract in favour of the appellants.15. It is also pertinent to mention that CIDCO in the show cause notice has taken the ground ofof tender as the only basis for cancelling the allotment and CIDCO in the final order has also confined itself to theof tender as the ground for cancellation but in the reply to the writ petition, CIDCO is seeking to add further grounds to justify the order of cancellation, which is clearly not permissible in terms of the law laid down by this Court in several of its decisions. Learned counsel for the appellant submitted that since all the pleadings, records, annexures filed before the High Court and also of this Court is available before this Court, this Court may dispose of the same on merits without remitting the matter to the High Court for fresh disposal as suggested by learned senior counsel for respondent No.1. It is true that all the records, documents, annexures are available before us. At the same time, the High Court had no occasion to consider all these rival submissions and to render a categorical finding on all the issues. The High Court has disposed of the writ petition only on the ground of availability of alternative remedy. The High Court has not recorded its finding on the merits of the rival claim. Since elaborate arguments were advanced by learned senior counsel for the appellant and countered by learned senior counsel for the respondent, we extracted the entire argument in extenso in order to enable the High Court to consider all the above submissions made by both the parties on merits and dispose of the same within a period of 6 weeks from the date of receipt of this judgment. As already noticed the request for allotment of construction of multiplex was made on 18.05.2004 and the allotment was made by the Boards Resolution dated 03.06.2004. It is also a matter of record that both the appellants in the civil appeals have deposited several crores of rupees as and when directed by respondent No.1. It is also pertinent to notice that commencement certificate to the appellants permitting them to start the construction was also made on 28.02.2005. However, the show cause notice was issued in July, 2005 and the allotment was cancelled subsequently which was challenged in the writ petition in the year 2006. Since the matter is pending for a very long time before the High Court and also of this Court, we feel just and proper to request the High Court to restore both the writ petitions No. 9467/2005 and 9468/2005 to its original No. along with the pleadings which were already complete and request the High Court to decide the same in a time bound manner preferably and on priority basis within 6 weeks from the date of receipt of this judgment.