Delhi High Court’s Valmiki Mehta J. imposes 3L costs for “abuse of the process of law”

The Delhi High Court’s Valmiki Mehta J. yesterday imposed costs of three lakhs while dismissing a Rajya Sabha Secretariat employee’s plea challenging the appointment of two Additional Secretaries in the Secretariat. After discovering that the petitioner had filed five similar petitions before, the judge imposed costs, stating that this was an “abuse of the process of law”..On November 25 this year, when S.N. Sahu’s writ petition came up before Mehta, J., the judge passed an order calling for the files of the other five petitions..Yesterday, Mehta J first examined the reliefs sought in the sixth petition, namely writs of quo warranto and certiorari against the two appointments. Dismissing both prayers, the court held that neither had the petitioner claimed which law or statute had been violated (a pre-requisite for quo warranto) nor has the petitioner any locus to seek a writ of certiorari. .The judgment reads,.“Therefore, the petitioner cannot be granted the relief of writ of certiorari for quashing of the appointments of Shri Ramacharyulu and Shri Mukul Pande as Additional Secretaries of Rajya Sabha Secretariat because the petitioner does not seek his own appointment but only seeks quashing of the appointments of Shri Ramacharyulu and Shri Mukul Pande and thus the petitioner lacks locus standi to question the appointments by way of the present writ petition.”.As for the other petitions, the judge notes,.“No doubt, there may be cosmetic and minor changes here and there in the repeated writ petitions but in essence most of the writ petitions are filed on the same facts and causes of action as will be demonstrated below…..The judge has held in the 24-page judgment that filing multiple writ petitions was an “abuse of the process of law” and that there cannot be repeated litigations on the same set of facts and essentially the same cause of action. Justice Mehta stated,.“This concept of filing a new writ petition essentially for getting earlier admitted writ petitions heard is an unheard concept and argument and needs to be put down with heavy hands. .Petitioner cannot expect that there is only one case of his in this Court for being decided and this Court does not have cases of hundreds and thousands of other petitioners who are silently waiting for their turn in queue for their cases to be heard on merits.”.Following these observations, costs were imposed, with the moneys to be deposited in the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund within four weeks..Read the judgment below.