DEEPAK Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN this writ petition preferred under Article 227 of the Constitution of India the petitioner has called in question the legality and validity of the order dated 23.12.2004 passed by the learned Welfare Commissioner, Bhopal Gas Victims whereby he has dismissed the suo motu revision on the found that the petitioner has failed to prove his presence in the gas affected area.

(2.) WE have heard the learned counsel for the parties and perused the order passed by the learned Commissioner. On the basis of the documents available on record the learned Commissioner has arrived at a finding of fact that the documents on which reliance is placed by the petitioner are interpolated and tampered and in absence of any verification being done from the Food Department they cannot be believed. The petitioner had also failed to substantiate his claim before the two authorities below. In this connection, reliance can profitably be had to a decision rendered by a Division Bench of this Court in Premwati v. Union of India, W.P. No. 14170/2005 wherein it is held that once a finding of fact has been recorded against the claimants that they have failed to prove their case to substantiate the claim, such a finding of fact until shown to be perverse is not open to challenge in a petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India.

(3.) 10.1975, therefore, view taken by the learned Commissioner that on the basis of date of birth of the petitioner his name should have been there in the old ration card is correct. In the old ration card total number of unit of child is shown as one but names of three children have been subsequently added, which seems to be an interpolation and in the absence of its verification from the Food Department the authenticity of if cannot be believed. 4. Learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that the petitioner was adversely affected due to MIC gas but no nature of ailment has been described nor any evidence has been adduced in support of ailment. The petitioner has failed to show how the finding of fact arrived at by learned Commissioner is perverse. In our opinion, the learned Commissioner has ascribed the reasons for dismissal of the revision.