TMI Blog2000 (10) TMI 976X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ition was clearly intended to be a prop for the civil review petition; it was filed quite irresponsibly and without giving any thought regarding its maintainability. But in the case of the writ petition better sense prevailed at an early stage and the counsel appearing for the petitioners in that case, realised the mistake in filing the writ petition without losing much time. Within moments of the commencement of the submissions on the writ petition (on 22-8-2000) learned counsel sat down stating that he wished to withdraw the petition and on the next date (25-8-2000) he filed a brief and simple petition seeking unqualified permission from the Court for withdrawal of the writ petition for withdrawal lies on the record of this case. 2. Unfortunately, that was not the case in the civil review petition which was sought to be pressed with vigour, paying no heed to the repeated words of caution and warnings by the Court, not only in observations made in course of hearing of the case but also formally recorded in the order, dated 25-8-2000. However, at the fag end of the hearing when the submission of all concerned in this matter had concluded, counsel representing the petitioner in t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... uilding on the four plots in question not being in dispute the only question, purely of fact, that remained to be ascertained was whether or not the four plots formed part of the land of national highway 31. 6. In the counter-affidavit filed on behalf of the Rotary Club, Begusarai it was not expressly denied that the piece of land in question was a part of the national highway. On the contrary, it was admitted that the piece of land. 0.40 decimals in area, was located at the junction of the national highway and the main road going east to west near the Harihar Mahadev Chowk . From the counter-affidavit it appears that the deponent's idea of a road was only its metalled part and the deponent further seemed to maintain that the occupation of the land by the Rotary Club and its action in constructing the building there could not be questioned as irregular, illegal or invalid for the reason that the land was given to the Rotary Club, Begusarai under a licence by the District Magistrate, Begusarai. Having expressed such simple beliefs held by the deponent, the counter-affidavit went on to inform this Court that the Rotary Club, Begusarai in its activities got the support and pat ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the District Magistrate, Begusarai and affirmed that the location is not in doubt and further made a statement on behalf of the State of Bihar, upon instructions from the District Magistrate present in the Court, that the constructions are on the public road and highway's side patri, and on the space and area, the conforming use of which is reserved for the road. He further stated that it is a matter of record that permissive possession was given without any proprietary right to Rotary Club. and further it was observed as follows (para 6 of Pat LJR) : On 28 April 2000, the Court indicated to the learned Additional Advocate General III, appearing for the State, that the District Magistrate, Begusarai must file his affidavit and with responsibility indicate, after a survey, the exact location of the alleged illegal constructions. Thus a supplementary counter-affidavit was filed on behalf of respondent No. 3, the District Magistrate. This time the counter-affidavit was affirmed by the District Magistrate. Along with this counter-affidavit was filed a survey map, which was duly verified by the Estate Officer, Begusarai, District Land Acquisition Officer, Begusarai, the Co ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... administration may consider relocating the blood bank set up in that building to some other site. In that connection he gave an undertaking that the Rotary Club will move out of the piece of land in question and the building constructed there within a month from the date of the order. On such a plea being made, Addl. Advocate General III advised the District Magistrate, then present in Court, that on a request made by the Rotary Club the blood bank may be given a suitable accommodation, if possible, within the precinct of the local Government hospital. As regards the statue of Dr. Rajendra Prasad installed on the site, the District Magistrate assured the Court that it would be removed from there with all due respect and reinstalled within the precinct of the Government Hospital or any other suitable site be fetting a memorial to Dr. Prasad. In view of the aforesaid, this Court concluded that, order by observing as follows (2000 (4) Pat LJR 362, para 19) : Counsel for the State Mr. Ganga Prasad Roy, Addl. Advocate General III and Mr. Ram Balak Mehto, Senior Advocate appearing for the private respondent No. 4, I however, have both stated that the situation cannot be justified. As ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Court had dismissed the special leave petition as withdrawn by order, dated 1-8-2000. The review petition was then filed in this Court on 9-8-2000. That being the position this Court directed for listing the writ petition and the civil review petition together on a date specified by the petitioners. It was further directed that a copy of the special leave petition filed before the Supreme Court be also produced. Counsel for the petitioner in the civil review petition duly filed copies of the special leave petition which lie on the record of this Court. 13. The writ petition in hand, as noted above, was filed by four individuals who were neither parties in the main case nor did they have any concern with the issue(s) arising in the main case. In an attempt to establish their locus standi to file the writ petition, they told this Court that the building in question was constructed by the Rotary Club, Begusarai by collecting public donations and they too had made monetary contributions for the construction of the building. This, according to them, gave them sufficient right to maintain this writ petition, asking the Court to review its earlier order and to question the offer made ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... on with the main case the Collector, Begusarai had asked for an enquiry and the enquiry report was submitted in response to the Collector's direction. According to the report the Rajendra Memorial Park and the Rotary Club building were situate in the [triangular) space formed at the meeting point of Tirhut Road and National Highway 31. It was further stated in that report that the park and the building were situate on the piece of land left vacant after the construction of National Highway 31; that at present National Highway 31 was four lanes wide and no inconvenience was caused in the flow of vehicles and that after being made four lanes wide, additional 60' land was remaining on the north of National Highway 31. 17. According to the review petitioner this report was not examined by the Court as it was not produced earlier. Further, according to the review petitioner this report would fully justify the construction of the building on the site in question and would prove as wrong and incorrect both the survey map and the statement of the District Magistrate made before the Court. 18. I am inclined to reject the submission out of hand. Though it is true that the enqui ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... been duly taken note of by this Court. I would only wish to add here that the enquiry report seems to be based on the same misconceived idea that a road is no more than its metalled portion. 20. The second ground which is based on serious accusations made against the previous set of counsel in the main case has turned out to be the most distasteful aspect of this case and that is the main reason for writing this long order for a case which was otherwise fit to be dismissed summarily. But before proceeding to examine the correctness of the allegations made against the previous set of counsel and the sufficiency of those allegations as a ground for review, some basic facts need to be clearly stated at the outset. 21. It is to be noted that the ground for review on the pica that the counsel representing the Rotary Club, Begusarai in the main case made wrong concessions on facts, unauthorisedly and without the knowledge of the petitioner, is based on the assumption that the finding of the Court that the offending structure was constructed on a piece of land forming part of N. H. 31 was made on the concession made by the counsel. That was not so. The Court had arrived at its findi ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... said Chandra Prakash Rungta was elected as the new President. 24. Without going into the question whether or not the change of the office bearers was in the normal course of events I find that a number of statements made in the special leave petition could only be properly verified either by Dinesh Tekriwal or by the counsel appearing for the club in the main case before this Court. In this regard it may further be pointed out that a number of statements made in the special leave petition before the Supreme Court, having a direct bearing on the facts in issue were found to be wrong and incorrect. In sub-paras 'A' and 'D' of para 5 of the special leave petition it was represented before the Supreme Court that a copy of the supplementary affidavit enclosing the survey map was never served upon the petitioner and the petitioner had. therefore, no opportunity either to know what was shown in the survey map or to verify its correctness. Paras 5 'A' and 'D' are as follows : A. Because the Hon'ble High Court has passed the impugned judgment and order on the basis of the map produced by the District Magistrate filed along with her supplementary af ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... It was on the basis of such patently incorrect statements of fact, made on oath, that the petitioner in the special leave petition urged the Supreme Court to intervene in this matter. The special leave petition was finally taken up on 1-8-2000 when the Supreme Court passed the following order : Taken on Board. Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that he intends to file review petition in the High Court as according to him the concession by the learned counsel was wrongly given on misconception of facts which he wants to point out to the High Court as on this concession the High Court has passed the impugned order. The special leave petition, therefore, stands dismissed as withdrawn. However, at his request, the demolition of the offending structure shall stand stayed for two weeks from today to enable the petitioner to do the needful in accordance with taw. We express no opinion on the merits of the controversy between the parties. 27. Thereafter, the review petition was filed in this Court on 9-8-2000. Surprisingly the deponent in the review petition is a third person, namely, Sandeep Agrawal who describes himself as the Secretary, Rotary Club, Begusarai. Needl ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... fidavit was duly given to the counsel for the review petitioner but no rejoinder to the lawyers' affidavit has been filed. The lawyers' affidavit gives the lie to the allegations made against them in the Civil Review Petition. It gives a detailed description of the proceedings in the main case from stage to stage. It is stated that Mr. Rajiv Ranjan Prasad appearing before the Court on 19-5-2000 was able to sense that on the basis of the survey map the final order of the Court was likely to go against his clients, the Rotary Club. Begusarai. He accordingly made a prayer for adjournment and on his prayer the case was adjourned to 26-6-2000. He then informed Mr. Dinesh Tekriwal regarding the possibility that the order might go against them in view of the survey map. It is further stated that he was then asked to engage Mr. Ram Balak Mahto to appear in the case on behalf of the Rotary Club. As advised by the client he engaged Mr. Mahto and on 24-6-2000 (two days before the case was due to be listed) a conference was held in the chamber of Mr. Mahto in which apart from the two lawyers, Mr. Dinesh Tekriwal and Dr. Shailendra Lal from the Rotary Club, Begusarai participated, Parag ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... nd the Civil Review Petition were filed simply because the order passed by this Court in the main case was not to the liking of some persons and they had sufficient money to try to get the order reversed and for getting their objective it was not beyond them to make serious allegations against two lawyers of this Court which on scrutiny turn out to be unfounded and false. 32. At the time of hearing of the writ petition/review petition, while trying to dutifully pay attention to the submissions being made on behalf of the petitioner. I was all the lime reminded of the observations made by the constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in L.I.C. v. Escorts Limited (1986) 1 SCC 264 : (AIR 1986 SC 1370) ; ..............Indeed, and there was no way out, we also had the advantage of listening to learned and long drawn out, intelligent and often ingenious arguments, advanced and dutifully heard by us. In the name of justice, we paid due homage to the causes of the high and mighty by devoting precious time to them, reduced, as we were, at times to the position of helpless spectators. Such is the nature of our judicial process that we do this with the knowledge that more worthy cause of ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... patently in violation of the terms and conditions of the licence. The Rotary Club was therefore, liable to be evicted for violation of the terms of the licence. This is the nature of the right which is sought to be enforced in the name of social work. 34. For some people charity and social service are means to bring them closer to God; for some others providing saccour to suffering fellow human beings is a source of genuine and deep happiness even without any reference to God. There are still others who do social service to buy peace for their otherwise troubled conscience. But there appear to be still others for whom a little charity and social service specially under the banner of some international name is a means of self-projection and personal aggrandizement. By their conduct, the persons behind this litigation seem to belong to the last category. 35. In view of the discussions made above, I have no hesitation in holding that the allegations made in the Civil Review Petition against the previous set of lawyers are incorrect and false. I further find and hold that the statements made in the affidavit filed jointly by the previous set of lawyers are true and correct and I ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... led by a new lawyer a certificate ought to be appended to the review petition, preferably by the previous counsel, stating that the facts stated in the petition were correct or alternatively by the newly engaged lawyer testifying that he had got the facts stated in the review petition verified by the previous lawyer. 38. The large and completely unregulated influx of lawyers into Courts has unfortunately given rise to many unhealthy trends and practices and the conduct of individual lawyers has become a matter of acute concern not only for the Courts but also for the professional bodies such as the Bar Council and the Advocates' Association etc. In past deliberations were made both formally and informally to evolve some regulatory mechanism for lawyers. A Division Bench of this Court had in fact suggested framing of rules regarding Advocates-on-record on the pattern of the Supreme Court. Requests in this connection have also come from the Bar Council and the Advocate General. I should take this opportunity to bring this matter to the notice of the Hon'ble the Chief Justice who is also a member of this Bench and who may perhaps wish to request the Full Court to frame such ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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