TMI Blog1975 (12) TMI 167X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... own of Mehmadabad. They made an application under Rule 3 of the Rules to the District Magistrate, Kaira, for the grant of a Certificate that there was no objection to the location of a cinema theatre at this site. The District Magistrate then notified in the prescribed Form, the substance of the application by publication in newspapers, inviting objections to the grant of a No-objection Certificate. In response thereto, several persons lodged objections, but the appellants, who are the proprietors of a cinema house, situated on Station Road, Mehmadabad, were not among those objectors. Some of the objections were that a Muslim graveyard, a Durgah, a compost depot, a school and public latrines were situated in the vicinity of the proposed site. The District Magistrate (Res. 3 herein) invited the opinions of the Chairman of Nagar Panchayat, Executive Engineer Roads and F, Buildings, and the District Superintendent of Police. These three authorities opined that they had no objection to the grant of the Certificate applied for. The District Magistrate visited the site on 27-7-1970 Thereafter he submitted a report to the State Government (Res. 4) 'that the proposed site was not fi ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... and 2 in compliance with the Government's directive. . The High Court, purporting to rely on this Court's decision in State of Gujarat v. Krishna Cinema([1971] 2 S.C.R. 110.) and an earlier decision of its own in Kishore Chander Ratilal v. State of Gujarat( ), held that Rule 5(Special Civil Application No. 912 of 1970, decided by Gujarat High Court on 25/27th Nov. 1 970.) in its entirety, and the words the previous permission of the Government obtained under Rule S in Rule 6 being ultra vires and invalid, have to be ignored as non est, with the result that the District Magistrate had to come to his own conclusion on relevant considerations and objective norms whether a No objection Certificate should be granted or refused; that under the Act the District Magistrate and not the Government-is the Licencing Authority, and he was bound to exercise this power, which is an integral part of the process of licensing, in a quasi judicial manner, that since the District Magistrate exercised this power not on his own in accordance with objective principles, but solely at the dictates of the Government, his act in granting the No- Objection Certificate suffers from a patent lack o ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... fundamental rights and for any other purpose. As explained by this Court in Dwarka Nath v. Income-tax officer, Kanpur([19965] 3 S.C.R. 536.) the founding fathers of the Constitution have designedly couched the Article in comprehensive phraseology to enable the High Court to reach injustice wherever it is found. In a sense, the scope and nature of the power conferred by the Article is wider than that exercised by the writ courts in England. However, the adoption of the nomenclature of English writs, with the prefix nature of superadded, indicates that the general principles grown over the years in the English Courts, can, shorn of unnecessary technical procedural restrictions, and adapted to the special conditions of this vast country, in so far as they do not conflict with any provision of the Constitution, or the law declared by this Court, be usefully considered in directing the exercise of this discretionary jurisdiction in accordance with well-recognised rules of practice. According to most English decisions, in order to have the locus standi to invoke certiorari jurisdiction, the petitioner should be an aggrieved person and, in a case of defect of jurisdiction, such ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... own, and was not merely applying as one of the public, he was entitled to the writ ex debito justitiae. It is to be noted that in this case was living in the neighbourhood of the roads were to be abandoned as a result of the certificates issued by the Justices. He would have suffered special inconvenience by the abandonment. Thus had shown a particular grievance of his own beyond some inconvenience suffered by the general public. He had a right to object to the grant of the Certificate. Non-publication of the notice at all the places in accordance with law, had seriously prejudiced him in the exercise of that legal right. The ratio of the decision in Queen v. Justices of Surrey (supra) was followed in King v. Groom and ors. Ex Parte([1901] 2 K. B. 157.). There, the parties were rivals in the liquor trade. The applicants (brewers) had persistently objected to the jurisdiction of the justices to grant the ` license to one J. K. White in a particular month. It was held that the applicants had a sufficient interest in the matter to enable them to invoke certiorari jurisdiction. A distinguishing feature of this case was that unlike the appellants in the present case who did not ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... risdiction to hear the appeal. An objection was taken that Greenbaum had no locus standi. Rejecting the contention, Lord Denning observed: I should have thought that in this case Greenbaum was certainly a person aggrieved, and not a stranger. He was affected by the magistrate's orders because the magistrate ordered another person to be put on his pitch. It is a proper case for the intervention of the court by means of certiorari. It is to be noted that the Council had duly allotted pitch No. 2 to J'' Greenbaum in the exercise of their administrative power. The Magistrate's order pursuant to which the Council cancelled the allotment. and re-allotted that pitch to Gritzman, was without jurisdiction By this illegal cancellation and reallotment Greenbaum's interest to trade on pitch No. 2, which had been duly licensed out to him was directly and prejudically affected by the impugned action. R. v. Manchester Legal Aid Committee((1952) 2 W.B.D. 413.), is another case belonging to this group. lt was held that the applicants therein were persons aggrieved because they were grieved by the failure of the Legal Aid Committee to give them prior notice and heari ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ty Corporation Ltd.,( [1966]1 Q.B. 880.), ratepayers were held to have the locus standi to apply for certiorari, notwithstanding the fact that it could not be said that the actual burdens to be borne by the applicants fell more heavily on them than on other members of the local community. In Bar Council of Maharashtra v. M. V. Dabholkar([1976]1 S.C.R. 306.), Bench of seven learned Judges of this Court considered the question whether the Bar Council of a State was a 'person aggrieved' to maintain an appeal under s. 38 of the Advocates' Act, 1961. Answering the question in the affirmative, this Court, speaking through Ray C.J., indicated how the expression person aggrieved is to be interpreted in the context of a statute, thus: The meaning of the words a person aggrieved may vary according to the context of the statute. One of the meanings is that a person will be held to be aggrieved by a decision if that decision is materially adverse to him. Normally, one is required to establish that one has been denied or deprived of something to which one is legally entitled in order to make one a person aggrieved . Again a person is aggrieved if a legal burden is impose ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... d of a benefit which he might have received if some other order had been made. A 'person aggrieved' must be a man who has suffered a legal grievance,`a man against whom a decision has been pronounced which has wrongfully deprived him of something, or wrong fully refused him something, or wrongfully affected his title to something. Ex Parte Stott([1916] 1K B.7), is another illustration of a person who had no legal grievance, nor had he sufficient interest in the matter. A licensing authority under the Cinematography Act, 1901, granted to a theatre proprietor a licence for the exhibition of cinematograph films at his theatre. The licence was subject to the condition that the licensee should not exhibit any film if, he had notice that the licensing authority objected to it. A firm who had acquired the sole right of 1 exhibition of a certain film in the district in which the theatre was situated entered into an agreement with the licensee for the exhibition of the film at his theatre. The licensing authority having given notice to the licensee that it objected to the exhibition of the film, the film applied for a writ of certiorari to bring up the notice to be quash ed on t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... y indicates that this is not a cast-iron rule. It is flexible enough to take in those cases where the applicant has been prejudicially affected by an act or omission of an authority, r even though he has no proprietary or even a fiduciary interest in the subject- matter. That apart, in exceptional cases even a stranger or a person who was not a party to the proceedings before the authority, but has a substantial and genuine interest in the subject matter of the proceedings will be covered by this rule. The principles enunciated in the English cases noticed above, are not inconsistent with it. In the United States of America, also, the law on the point is substantially the same. No matter how seriously infringement of the Constitution may be called into question, said Justice Frankfurter in Coleman v. Miller(1939) 307 U.S. 433.) this is not the tribunal for its challenge except by those who have some specialized interest of their own to vindicate apart from a political concern which belongs to all . To have a standing to sue , which means locus standi to ask for relief in a court independently of a statutory remedy, the plaintiff must show that he is injured, that is, subjec ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ed. Such applicants undoubtedly stand in the category of 'persons aggrieved'. In the grey outer-circle the. bounds which separate the first category from the second, intermix, interfuse and overlap increasingly in a centrifugal direction. All persons in this outerzone may not be persons aggrieved. To distinguish such applicants from 'strangers', among them, some broad tests may be deduced from the conspectus made above. These tests are not absolute and ultimate. Their efficacy varies according to the circumstances of the case, including the statutory context in which the matter falls to be considered. These are: Whether the applicant is a person whose legal right has been infringed ? Has he suffered a legal wrong or injury, in the sense that his interest, recognised by law. has been prejudicially and directly affected by the act or omission of the authority, complained of ? Is he a person who has suffered a legal grievance, a person against whom a decision has been pronounced which has wrongfully deprived him of something or wrongfully refused him something, or wrongfully affected his title to something ? Has he a special and substantial grievance of his own b ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... d examine the record of any order made by a licensing authority under this Act, and pass such order thereon as it thinks just and proper. Assuming that the scope of the words aggrieved person in Section 8B is wider than the ambit of the same words as used in Sec. 8A, then also, the appellant cannot, in the circumstances of this case, be regarded as a person aggrieved' having. the requisite legal capacity to invoke certiorari jurisdiction. The Act and the Rules recognise a special interest of persons residing, or concerned with any institution such as a school, temple, mosque etc. located within a distance of 200 yards of the site on which a cinema house is proposed to be constructed. The appellant does not fall within the category of such persons having a special interest in the locality. It is not his case that his cinema house is situated anywhere near the site in question, or that he has any peculiar interest in his personal, fiduciary or representative capacity in any school, temple etc. situated in the vicinity of the said site. It cannot therefore be said that the appellant is a person aggrieved on account of his having a particular and substantial interest of his ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... egal wrong. He has suffered no legal grievance. He 'has no legal peg for' a justiciable claim to hang on. Therefore he is not a 'person aggrieved' and has no locus standi to challenge the grant of the No-objection Certificate. lt is true that, in the ultimate analysis, the jurisdiction under Article 226 in general, and certiorari in particular, is discretionary. But (1) Salmond on Jurisprudence by Fitz-Gerald. p. 357 para 85. in a country like India where writ petitions are instituted in the High Courts by the thousand, many of them frivolous, a strict ascertainment, at the outset, of the standing of the petitioner to invoke this extraordinary jurisdiction, must be insisted upon. The broad guide lines indicated by us, coupled with other well established self-devised rules of practice, such as the availability of an alternative remedy, the conduct of the petitioner etc., can go a long way to help the courts in weeding out a large number of writ petitions at the initial stage with consequent saving of public time and money. While a Procrustean approach should be avoided, as a rule the Court should not interfere at the instance of a 'stranger' unless t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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