CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court on Friday censured a petitioner for ‘forum shopping’ after he brought a litigation which had already attained finality in earlier verdicts by the High Court and also the Supreme Court through a writ petition.
The Court viewed “forum shopping by the litigant as an abuse of law.” In legal parlance, ‘forum shopping’ is a practice adopted by litigants to get their cases heard in a particular court that is likely to provide a favourable judgment. The Court dismissed the petition which had challenged the termination of LPG distributorship by Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) on the ground that it was secured by means of illegal residential certificate.
On perusal of records, it was found that the petitioner had earlier approached the HC on the issue but it was dismissed by a Single Judge Bench in 2017. Subsequently, he had filed a writ appeal challenging it. But a division bench upheld the Single Judge Bench’s order in 2018. Later, the petitioner had unsuccessfully challenged it by way of a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court in 2019.
The Court felt that the issue of his residential status had been set to rest in an earlier round wherein the petitioner had already travelled up to the SC and suffered dismissal. The Single Judge Bench of Justice SK Panigrahi said it is a clear case of forum shopping at the behest of the petitioner, who, having lost in the earlier round of litigation which attained finality, has sought similar remedy in the instant proceedings.