A.D. JOHN Vs. SUPERINTENDENT OF POLICE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner, a quarry owner, is aggrieved with the alleged illegal obstruction caused to the loading and unloading work in the quarry carried on by respondents 4 and 5. The petitioner's contention is that the petitioner has JCBs, with which the loading and unloading work is carried on in the quarry. The petitioner submits he has all valid permits, being quarrying permit at Ext.P1, environment clearance certificate at Ext.P2, explosives license at Ext.P3, consent from the Kerala State Pollution Control Board at Ext.P4 and D&O License at Ext.P5. The area, though scheme covered, the petitioner is not employing any manual labourer and is carrying on the activities only with the JCBs.

(2.) The learned Counsel for the 4th and 5th respondents filed a detailed counter-affidavit. They have produced Ext.R4(a) and R4(b) orders passed by this Court at an earlier instance. The petitioner along with another was before this Court seeking the very same relief with respect to two quarries. This Court by Ext.R4(a) judgment found that the petitioner would have normally been left to other alternative remedies. However, on the undertaking that they will use JCBs only to load large boulders, which the workman cannot manually lift, the Writ Petition was disposed of recording the undertaking. Hence the petitioner was obliged to grant any work of small nature to the party respondents workmen, who were registered under the Kerala Headload Workers Act and operating within the Scheme covered area. This was in the year 2008. Again in the year 2009, the petitioner was before this Court in which Ext.R4(b) was passed reiterating what has been stated in Ext.R4(a).

(3.) Going by the specific averments made by respondents 4 to 6 and also the judgments produced, there is no ground now raised by the petitioner to resile from his earlier undertaking. The fact of suppression of the earlier orders obtained by the petitioner in the Writ Petition, also restrains us from issuing any positive orders. There was a consistent practice available from the year 2008 of the petitioner employing the headload workers registered under the Act and Scheme for manual labour of loading and unloading of small bounders and JCB's use confined to such loading and unloading work of large boulders. If there were any change in circumstances, the petitioner should have specifically pleaded the change in circumstances after producing the judgments earlier obtained from this Court. The petitioner having suppressed the material details about the earlier Writ Petitions, we are not inclined to exercise extra-ordinary discretion of this Court. The Writ Petition stands dismissed. No costs.