ANNAPOORNESHWARI Vs. BANGLORE DEVELOPMENT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN the above public interest litigation the residents of the locality seek a writ of mandamus to direct the respondents to stop the construction of commercial complex at site No. 228 RHCS Layout, annapoorneshwari Nagar, Bangalore which is a residential area and to comply with the master plan and the provisions of Karnataka Town and country Planning Act, 1961 and Karnataka Municipal Corporation Act, 1976. They have also sought for a direction to the respondents to withdraw the permission granted for transfer of excise licence vide Lic. No. EXEIML 41cl-9-07-08 transferred on 15. 10. 2007.

(2.) WHEN the matter was taken up for hearing, the learned Counsel for the petitioners seeks permission to withdraw the writ petition. It is settled law that residents of a locality have got every right to file public interest litigation for the enforcement of the town planning or exhibition of the planning permission in accordance with law. Therefore, the petitioners have rightly set the law on motion by way of the present public interest litigation to stop the construction of the commercial complex. Having thus chosen to set the law in motion, now the Counsel for the petitioners seeks permission to withdraw the writ petition. The coming into being of a public interest litigation itself is on account of deprivation of legal right to a group of people who, once this realisation dawns on them, choose to move the Court with a few representing the whole group and once that is done, to revert back and to express the desire to withdraw the petition tantamounts to an admission on the part of the representatives of the group that there was no such denial of any right to them by the authorities, which invariably should make the Court doubt the very motive and good intention of the group itself in the first place and therefore we strongly deprecate the present move.

(3.) THE Apex Court had occasion to deal with a situation wherein a public interest litigation filed was sought to be withdrawn. In turning down the said request the Apex Court in the case of sheela Barse Vs. Union of india reported in (1988) 4 SCC 226 observed that the person who moves a writ petition in public interest cannot be allowed to appropriate to himself the prerogative to decide as to what course the litigation should take as it is not for one individual to do so, as what is involved therein is the interest of larger group of aggrieved citizens observed thus: