Dnyandeo Sabaji Naik And Anr vs Pradnya Prakash Khadekar And Ors

2. The subject matter of the dispute comprises of commercial premises bearing Shop No.8 A, Bhatia Bhuvan Ground Floor, D S Babrekar Marg, Off Gokhale Road (North), Dadar, Mumbai 400 028. The finding of fact (as will be elucidated hereafter) is that the premises were granted under a conducting agreement to the petitioners for carrying on the business of a laundry. The case of the original plaintiff who sued for possession was that the premises were granted on the basis of a conducting agreement on 31 July 1968 on a royalty of Rs.260 per month. The suit for eviction was filed against the petitioners in the Court of Small Causes on 26 April 1984. Initially, the suit was decreed on 15 September 1999. In an appeal filed by the petitioners, the appellate Bench of the Small Causes Court by a judgment dated 10 January 2002 held that since the petitioners were in occupation of the premises under a conducting agreement, there was no relationship of licensor and licensee. As a result, the Court of Small Causes was held to have no jurisdiction under Section 41 of the Presidency Small Causes Courts’ Act. The appeal against the judgment and decree of the Trial Court was hence allowed. The judgment of the appellate Bench was questioned in a Writ Petition filed by the predecessor-in-interest of the respondents. The petition was dismissed by a learned Single Judge of the High Court on 24 June 2002.

5. In pursuance of the above order, the petitioners filed undertakings to vacate the premises on or before 30 November 2014. The petitioners took the benefit of the order of the High Court by which they were granted a year’s time to vacate the premises. The undertakings formed the basis of the order of the learned Single Judge dated 2 December 2013 when the First Appeal was disposed of. The matter did not rest there. An application for extension of time to vacate the premises was filed before the High Court which was allowed by the learned Single Judge in the following terms, by an order dated 5 December 2014 :

6. By and as a result of the above order, the petitioners obtained an extension of time until 31 March 2015 to vacate the premises. The petitioners then filed a Review Petition before the High Court on 17 March 2015. Together with the Review Petition, the petitioners filed another application for extension of time to vacate the premises by a further period of five years. The learned Single Judge dismissed the Review Petition on 16 June 2015.

9. We are unable to accept the contention which has been advanced on behalf of the petitioners. The order of the High Court dated 22 November 2013 indicates that at the hearing of the First Appeal, the learned Single Judge indicated to the petitioners that she found no substance in the First Appeal. At this stage, counsel for the petitioners, upon seeking instructions, stated that the petitioners would be willing to furnish an undertaking to vacate the premises by 30 November 2014. The respondents acceded to this request subject to the compensation being determined at Rs 5000 per month as was directed by the High Court previously. The order of the High Court indicates that the petitioners were granted a period of ten days even thereafter to reflect upon the undertaking which they were to file and it was only on 2 December 2013 that the First Appeal was eventually disposed of in terms of the undertaking. The petitioners sought and obtained the benefit of an order granting them a period of one year to vacate the premises. The matter did not rest there. The petitioners moved the High Court again for extension of time which was allowed to them by an order dated 5 December 2014. The order of the High Court indicates that the extension was sought on the ground that the daughter of the applicant was pursing her post graduate studies and in order to enable the petitioners “to find out other premises for their laundry business”. This sequence of events leaves no manner of doubt that the undertaking was not called for by the High Court to secure the occupation of the premises during the period that the petitioner would have required to further assail the order of the High Court in this Court. The petitioners, on the contrary, clearly indicated that they would rest content with a time of one year to vacate the premises and in fact obtained a further extension of time of four months even after the expiry of the initial term of one year.

14. Courts across the legal system - this Court not being an exception – are choked with litigation. Frivolous and groundless filings constitute a serious menace to the administration of justice. They consume time and clog the infrastructure. Productive resources which should be deployed in the handling of genuine causes are dissipated in attending to cases filed only to benefit from delay, by prolonging dead issues and pursuing worthless causes. No litigant can have a vested interest in delay. Unfortunately, as the present case exemplifies, the process of dispensing justice is misused by the unscrupulous to the detriment of the legitimate. The present case is an illustration of how a simple issue has occupied the time of the courts and of how successive applications have been filed to prolong the inevitable. The person in whose favour the balance of justice lies has in the process been left in the lurch by repeated attempts to revive a stale issue. This tendency can be curbed only if courts across the system adopt an institutional approach which penalizes such behavior. Liberal access to justice does not mean access to chaos and indiscipline. A strong message must be conveyed that courts of justice will not be allowed to be disrupted by litigative strategies designed to profit from the delays of the law. Unless remedial action is taken by all courts here and now our society will breed a legal culture based on evasion instead of abidance. It is the duty of every court to firmly deal with such situations. The imposition of exemplary costs is a necessary instrument which has to be deployed to weed out, as well as to prevent the filing of frivolous cases. It is only then that the courts can set apart time to resolve genuine causes and answer the concerns of those who are in need of justice. Imposition of real time costs is also necessary to ensure that access to courts is available to citizens with genuine grievances. Otherwise, the doors would be shut to legitimate causes simply by the weight of undeserving cases which flood the system. Such a situation cannot be allowed to come to pass. Hence it is not merely a matter of discretion but a duty and obligation cast upon all courts to ensure that the legal system is not exploited by those who use the forms of the law to defeat or delay justice. We commend all courts to deal with frivolous filings in the same manner.

15. We accordingly dismiss the Special Leave Petitions but while doing so, direct that:

16. We also clarify that this judgment shall not affect the contempt proceedings which have been initiated against the petitioners.

17. There shall be an order in these terms.

...........................................CJI [JAGDISH SINGH KHEHAR] .............................................J [Dr D Y CHANDRACHUD] ….........................................J [SANJAY KISHAN KAUL] New Delhi;

March 1, 2017