Madras High Court asks Advocate General to consider invoking Vexatious Litigation (Prevention) Act against serial petitioner

The Madras High Court recently asked Tamil Nadu Advocate General R Shunmugasundaram to consider invoking the rarely used State law, the Vexatious Litigation (Prevention) Act 1949, against a Chennai resident who seemed to be in the habit of filing frivolous litigation in different courts across the State..In a judgment passed on September 30, a Bench of Justices Paresh Upadhyay and D Bharatha Chakravarthy granted liberty to the Advocate General to consider the materials on record and pass appropriate orders against the litigant, one Azizul Karim.The Bench said that it was convinced that Karim was a serial litigant in the habit of filing vexatious litigation before various courts, and that such acts warranted the invocation of the 1949 Act. .However, since the State law empowers the Court to merely make recommendations and provides for only the AG to invoke its provisions against any private person, the Bench asked Shunmugasundaram to take the final decision."We note that, on the basis of the material produced before this Court, prima facie we find that appropriate order needs to be passed against the present appellant, invoking provisions of the Vexatious Litigation (Prevention) Act, 1949, however we clarify that, these observations are prima facie in nature and in the event learned Advocate-General arrives at the satisfaction that such an order need not be passed, our observations will not bind him, leaving it open to the respondents of these appeals to take recourse to the remedy available to them under the law," the order stated..The Court passed the directions in a batch of appeals that Karim had filed against an interim order passed by a single-judge in a 2017 civil suit. On September 22, the Bench had said it was inclined to dismiss Karim's appeals. However, his counsel sought a day’s time to get instructions from his client on withdrawing the appeals.The counsel did not appear on the next day, or on any subsequent dates of hearing. When an attempt was made to call him, the phone number in the case bundle turned out to Karim's personal number.When the lawyer finally appeared on September 30, he sought permission to withdraw the appeals. However, the Court refused the same, noting that in a previous order, it had said that there was abuse of process of law on Karim's part..The Court also noted that Karim had previously invited adverse remarks and orders from the single-judge. Taking serious note of such revelations, the single-judge had, in September 2021, ordered a thorough investigation into his activities by an officer of the rank of Assistant Commissioner of Police..Advocate R Natarajan had represented Karim, while Advocate M Nandhakumar had appeared for the respondents..[Read Judgment]