MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court recently imposed Rs 25,000 cost on a petitioner, while permitting him to withdraw two of his petitions, saying that it is the court's duty to ascertain the reasons and disallow such requests if there is abuse of judicial process.
The litigant, M V Radhakrishnan from Madurai, had filed a petition seeking a CB-CID probe on his complaint against an officer and another seeking vigilance inquiry into the alleged leak of his complaint copy to said officer.
Justice K Murali Shankar noted that the petitioner did not provide a proper reply as to the reason for withdrawing the petitions. "While the petitioner can seek to withdraw the writ petition, the court has discretion to grant or deny it, and it is not an absolute right. The courts are duty-bound to find the reasons for withdrawal and may refuse permission to prevent abuse of judicial process," the judge observed. Since the petitioner, who appeared before the court in person pursuant to a direction, had not given any reason, except stating that he did not want to proceed with the petitions, the judge permitted him to withdraw, but imposed a cost of Rs 25,000 on him, payable to the High Court Legal Services Authority within a month.
Radhakrishnan had sent a complaint against the officer to the Public Department in 2020. Alleging inaction, he moved the HC last year, seeking a direction to the Public Department to forward the complaint to the CB-CID for inquiry. While the said petition was pending, he moved another petition this year, in which he claimed that the above complaint was allegedly leaked to the officer concerned and in order to wreak vengeance, the officer lodged a false complaint against him through his relative, leading to the registration of an FIR against him in the Karimedu police station in 2021.
A perusal of the FIR revealed that a relative of the officer had allegedly approached Radhakrishnan to convince him to withdraw his complaint. But Radhakrishnan allegedly demanded Rs 2 crore to withdraw the complaint and repeatedly harassed and intimidated him, according to the FIR. However, Radhakrishnan denied the allegations and sought a direction to the Vigilance department to inquire and take action against those who leaked his complaint.
When the petitions came up for hearing last month, Radhakrishnan said he did not wish to proceed with the petitions and sought permission to withdraw them. Hearing this, Justice Shankar passed the above order.