CHENNAI: Deprecating a petitioner for abusing the court process through a public interest litigation (PIL), the Madras High Court imposed a cost of Rs 50,000 on him.
The petitioner, M Baskar moved the HC seeking a direction to take action against an advocate, who had moved a PIL to quash the allotment of shops in Koyambedu wholesale market complex under “Minister Quota” by a former DMK minister.
Baskar alleged that the advocate suppressed facts and moved the PIL with an ulterior motive. He further claimed that the advocate was actually a beneficiary of the illegal allotment.
The First Bench, comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice T S Sivagnanam, before which the petition came up on Thursday, said they were pained to note the attempt of the petitioner to drag in the counsel who had canvassed the case against the quota.
“We strongly deprecate the practice,” said the Bench. Rejecting the contention of the petitioner that he had bought a shop in the complex by paying a premium amount to an allottee under the quota, the Bench said, “We find that this petition styled as PIL is really abuse of the process of court. The predicament the petitioner finds himself in is a consequence of his own action. It is like a person buying knowingly a stolen property and then claiming he does not know that he should bear the consequences of that property being taken away.”
The Bench declined to entertain the allegations against the counsel and dismissed the petition with a cost of Rs 50,000 and directed the litigant to deposit it with the Mediation and Conciliation Centre of the High Court, within 15 days.
The Court, had in December last, directed the CMDA to conduct a fresh auction of shops on pleas challenging the provision for providing 15 per cent reservation of shops in the Koyambedu market complex for allotment under the discretionary quota of the then DMK minister.