Case: Madan Gopal Rungta Vs. Secretary To The Government Oforissa

The brief facts necessary for present purposes are these. The appellant made an application to the State Government of Orissa in 1949 for grant of a mining lease for manganese ore over an area comprising 5400 acres situated in the district of Keonjhar. The appellant was the first applicant for the lease of the aforesaid area, and subsequently other persons applied for lease of the same area including M/s. Tata Iron and Steel Company Limited (hereinafter referred to as Tatas), the intervener in the present appeal. The Government of Orissa decided to grant the lease in favour of Tatas and in January 1956 referred the matter in the Central Government for its approval under r. 32 of the Mineral Concession Rules, 1949 (hereinafter referred to as the Rules), which lays down that it more than one application regarding the same land is received, preference shall be given to the application received first, unless the State Government, for any special reason, and with the prior approval of the Central Government decides to the contrary. The appellant made a representation to the Central Government against the recommendation of the State Government. Eventually, on April 9, 1957, the Central Government turned down the recommendation of the State Government about the grant of the mining lease to Tatas.It also directed that the applications received prior to the application of Tatas should be considered according to the Rules but added that in case the Government of Orissa desired to work the area on a departmental basis, the Central Government would have no objection to consider a proposal for that purpose. Thereafter the State Government rejected the application of the appellant in December 1957 on the ground that the State Government proposed to arrange for the exploitation of the area in the public sector.2. This was followed by an application for review to the Central Government under r. 57 of the Rules. This application was rejected by the Central Government in June 1959. Thereupon the appellant filed a petition under Art. 226 of the Constitution in the High Court in July, 1959. This petition was dismissed by the High Court on the ground that it had no jurisdiction to deal with the matter under Art. 226 as the final order in the case was passed by the Central Government which was located beyond the territorial jurisdiction of the High Court. The appellant then applied to the High Court for a certificate to appeal to this Court, which was rejected. He then asked for special leave from this Court, which was granted; and that is how the matter has come up before us.

Reasoning:
is well settled by a series of decisions of this Court beginning with Venkata Raos case 1953 SCR l144 : (AIR 1953 SC 210  ) that there is two-fold limitation on the power of the High Court to grant a writ under Art. 226. These limitations are firstly that the power is to be exercised throughout the territories in relation to which the High Court exercises jurisdiction, that is to say, the writs issued by the High Court cannot run beyond the territories subject to its jurisdiction, and secondly that the person or authority to whom the High Court is empowered to issue such writs must be within those territories, which clearly implies that they must be amenaable to its jurisdiction either by residence or location within those territories. The view taken in this case has been recently re-affirmed by this Court in Khajoor-Singh v. Union of India AIR 1961 SC 532  ; 1961-2 SCR 828  . Prima facie therefore, as the final order in this case was passed by the Central Government which is not located within the territories over which the High Court has jurisdiction, the High Court will have no power to grant a writ in thisare of opinion that the principle of Mohd. Noohs case,1958 SCR 595   : (AIR 1958 SC 86  ), cannot apply in the circumstances of the present case. The question there was whether the High Court would have power to issue a writ under Art. 226 in respect of a dismissal which was effective from 1948, simply because the revision against the order of dismissal was dismissed by the State Government in April 1950 after the Constitution came into force. It was in those circumstances that this Court held that the dismissal having taken place in 1948 could not be the subject-matter of an application under Art. 226 of the Constitution for that would be giving retrospective effect to that Article. The argument that the order of dismissal merged in the order passed in appeal therefrom and in the final order of revision was repelled by this Court on two grounds. It was held (firstly) that the principle of merger applicable to decrees of courts would not apply to orders of departmental tribunals, and (secondly) that the original order of dismissal would be operative on its own strength and did not gain greater efficacy by the subsequent order of dismissal of the appeal or revision, and therefore the order of dismissal having been passed before the Constitution would not be open to attack under Art. 226 of the Constitution. We are of opinion that the facts in Mohd. Noohs case, 1958 SCR 595   : (AIR 1958 SC 86  ) were of a special kind and the reasoning in that case would not apply to the facts of the presentposition in the present case is similar to that envisaged above. The Orissa Government rejected the application of the appellant for grant of the mining lease. The appellant being aggrieved by that order went in review to the Central Government under the Rules and that review petition was dismissed so that in effect the Central Government also rejected the application of the appellant for grant of the mining lease to him. It is not in dispute that if the Central Government was so minded it could have allowed the review and directed the Orissa Government to grant the mining lease to the appellant. Therefore when the Central Government rejected the review petition, it in effect rejected the application of the appellant for the grant of the mining lease to him.This order of the Central Government in effect rejecting the application of the appellant for the grant of the mining lease to him and confirming the rejection of the application of the appellant by the Orissa Government is clearly not amenable to the jurisdiction of the High Court of Orissa under Art. 226 in view of the fact that the Central Government is not located within the territories subject to the jurisdiction of the Orissa High Court. It would therefore have been useless for the Orissa High Court to issue a writ against the Orissa Government for the Central Governments order rejecting the review petition and therefore in effect rejecting the application of the appellant for grant of the mining lease would still stand.This is made clear by r. 60 of the Rules, which provides that "the order of the Central Government under rule 59 and subject only to such order, any order of a State Government under these rules, shall be final".Clearly therefore r. 60 provides that where there is a review petition against the order passed in the first instance by the State Government, the order of the Central Government passed in review would prevail and would be the final order dealing with an application for a mining lease under the Rules. Therefore, quite apart from the theoretical question of the merger of the State Governments order with the Central Governments order, the terms of R. 60 make it perfectly clear that whenever the matter is brought to the Central Government under R. 59, it is the order of the Centrall Government which is effective and final. In these circumstances we are of opinion that the High Court was right in holding that it had no jurisdiction to issue a writ under Art. 226 in the present case as the final order in this case was that of the Central Government which was not situate within the territories over which the High Court has jurisdiction.