HC criticises litigant for levelling corruption charges without any basis

HC criticises litigant for levelling corruption charges without any basis

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

THE HINDU

The Madras High Court Bench here has criticised a litigant for having filed a case accusing the president of A. Kokkulam Panchayat in Thirumangalam Panchayat Union near here of having extended the lease of shopkeepers at Chekkanoorani bus stand near here for extraneous considerations though, in fact, the shops had been leased out only after calling for public tenders.

Dismissing the writ petition filed by K.P.R. Anandhan, who wanted to take one of the shops on lease but did not participate in the tender process, a Division Bench of Justices V. Ramasubramanian and N. Kirubakaran agreed with Senior Counsel R. Venkataraman, appearing for the panchayat, that the petitioner had no legal right to question the allotment of shops without having participated in the tender.

Legal right

“Legal Right means an entitlement arising out of legal rules. Legal right is an advantage or benefit conferred upon a person by the rule of law. The expression ‘Person Aggrieved’ does not include a person, who suffers from psychological or an imaginary injury. A person aggrieved must, therefore, necessarily be one whose right or interest has been adversely affected or jeopardized,” the judgement read.

Stating that the petitioner had initially filed a public interest litigation petition in 2014 seeking a direction to the Panchayat to conduct public auction in accordance with Tamil Nadu Panchayat (Procedure for conducting Public Auction of Lease and Sales in Panchayat) Rules, 2001, the judges said that petition was withdrawn after the court felt that it projected only private interest.

Further, pointing out that the present writ petition was filed within two days after the dismissal of the PIL petition and the petitioner enjoyed interim orders in the present case for long, the Division Bench said: “Though we could have imposed on the petitioner exemplary costs for filing such a frivolous writ petition, yet, taking lenient view, there will be no order as to costs.”