HEM LALL BHANDARI Vs. STATE OF SIKKIM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By way of Public Interest Litigation, for short PIL, the writ petitioner Shri Hem Lall Bhandari approached this Court with this writ petition questioning the validity of the impugned Notifications dated 15/12/1998 as in Annexure P-2 and P-3 to the Writ Petition which was later on withdrawn by the authority concerned under the related Notification dated 12th August 2002 as in Annexure P-5, coupled with a prayer for declaring the entire amount on account of house rent and conveyance allowances drawn by Hon'ble Mr. Justice R. Dayal, Chief Justice of this Court, Respondent No. 2 herein by virtue of the impugned Notifications as in Annexure P-2 and P-3 is liable to be refunded by Respondent No. 2 with interest thereon and with a further direction to the C.B.I. to inquire into the affairs and the alleged tampering and manipulation of Certificate of Registration of official vehicle NO. SK-02/0006 and to probe and book the wrong doers by contending, inter alia,

(2.) It is also the case of the writ petitioner that as the ex-facie illegal Notifications dated 15/12/1998 (Annexure P-2 and P-3) have been withdrawn by Respondent No. 1, the Respondent No. 2 cannot be allowed to enjoy the undue and illegal benefit of those Notifications already obtained by him by way of house-rent and conveyances and he is duty bound to refund the amounts totaling about Rs. 8,50,000.00 with interest thereon, to the Public Exchequer.

(3.) That at the very outset the respondents particularly respondents No. 1, 3 and 5 raised Preliminary Objection to the maintainability of the present Writ Petition by filing separate written Preliminary Objection by the Respondents No. 1 and 5 on the one hand and a similar objection by the Respondent No. 3 on the other hand by contending inter alia, that the present Writ Petition is not filed bona fide by a public spirited person to ventilate some public interest but is a private interest litigation to project the personal interest of the petitioner, the political party he represents, the unscrupulous elements he supports and to terrorize the members of the Subordinate Judiciary of the State so that the members of the Subordinate Judiciary may deliver judgment according to his whims and the petitioner though he claims himself to be a Harvard educated lawyer, he does not have a single brief in the High Court and he is an active member of the Sikkim Sangram Parishad Political Party headed by Shri N.B. Bhandari, who (Shri N.B. Bhandari) and seven other persons questioned the validity of the related order framing the charges in connection with the corruption cases before this Court under Criminal Revision Nos. 5 of 2003 and 1 to 4 of 2003 which were dismissed on 1st May 2003 by the Division Bench of this Court headed by the Respondent No. 2 and by the reasons of such dismissal of the Criminal Revision cases, the writ petitioner soon after the dismissal of the Criminal Revisions of a prominent leader of his political party who could not get a favourable order from this Court, filing the present Writ Petition was merely done in order to bring disrepute to the Hon'ble High Court and as such it could not be said to be in public interest and this fact further get support from the fact that though the petition was filed on 9th May 2003 in the afternoon, a news item was published in a News Magazine North Eastern Weekend Review (9-15 May 2003) which must have been printed before 8th May 2003 wrongly stating that the Writ Petition was filed on 8th May 2003 and moreover the Writ Petitioner gave publicity of it by holding press conference on 11th May 2003 and this clearly shows the mala fide intention of the petitioner and that the Writ Petition contains false, frivolous, scandalous and contemptuous allegations made deliberately and intentionally to bring disrepute to the judiciary which amounts to Contempt of Court.