Court No. - 34
Case :- WRIT - C No. - 31605 of 2019 Petitioner :- M/S Akhil And Co.
Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 4 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Umang Srivastava,Ashish Kumar Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Pranjal Mehrotra
Hon'ble Sudhir Agarwal,J. Hon'ble Rajeev Misra,J.
1. Heard Sri Ashish Kumar, Advocate for petitioner and perused the record.
2. Petitioner has challenged order dated 10.04.2015 passed by Executive Engineer, Nirman Khand, U.P. Jal Nigam cancelling supply order issued to petitioner with immediate effect.
3. The order dated 10.04.2015 has now been challenged by means of present writ petition filed at the end of September, 2019 and we do not find any explanation for delay and laches of more than four years.
4. Undue delay and laches are relevant factors in exercising equitable jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. Following the cases of Government of West Bengal Vs. Tarun K. Roy and others 2004(1) SCC 347 and Chairman U.P. Jal Nigam and another Vs. Jaswant Singh and another 2006(11) SCC 464, the Apex Court in New Delhi Municipal Council Vs. Pan Singh and others J.T.2007(4) SC 253, observed that after a long time the writ petition should not have been entertained even if the petitioners are similarly situated and discretionary jurisdiction may not be exercised in favour of those who approached the Court after a long time. It was held that delay and laches were relevant factors for exercise of equitable jurisdiction. In M/S Lipton India Ltd. And others vs. Union of India and others, J.T. 1994(6) SC 71 and M.R. Gupta Vs. Union of India and others 1995(5) SCC 628 it was held that though there was no period of limitation provided for filing a petition under Article 226 of Constitution of India, ordinarily a writ petition should be filed within reasonable time. In K.V. Rajalakshmiah Setty Vs. State of Mysore, AIR 1961 SC 993, it was said that representation would not be adequate explanation to take care of delay. Same view was reiterated in State of Orissa Vs. Pyari Mohan Samantaray and others AIR 1976 SC 2617 and State of Orissa and others Vs. Arun Kumar Patnaik and others 1976(3) SCC 579 and the said view has also been followed recently in Shiv Dass Vs. Union of India and others AIR 2007 SC 1330= 2007(1) Supreme 455 and New Delhi Municipal Council (supra). The aforesaid authorities of the Apex Court has also been followed by this Court in Chunvad Pandey Vs. State of U.P. and others, 2008(4) ESC 2423.
5. The petitioner is admittedly guilty of undue delay and laches which has not been explained at all. For granting relief under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, laches is an important factor disentitling a litigant for any relief, as discussed above.
6. I, therefore, do not find any reason to interfere. Dismissed.
Order Date :- 27.9.2019 AK