Court No. - 34
Case :- WRIT - A No. - 21188 of 2004 Petitioner :- Anil Kumar Srivastava Respondent :- Regional Admistrative Committee Chitrakoot Dham And Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Hemant Kumar Counsel for Respondent :- S.C.
Hon'ble Sudhir Agarwal,J.
1. Sri Hemant Kumar, learned counsel for petitioner and learned Standing Counsel are present.
2. Admittedly, petitioner is employed in U.P. Primary Agricultural Co-operative Credit, Societies Centralize Services, Hamirpur but employer Co-operative Society is not impleaded as one of the respondents though ultimately financial burden is to be borne by it.
3. Learned counsel for petitioner submits that he has impleaded Appointing Authority and this should be treated to be employer.
4. Submission of learned counsel for petitioner is thoroughly misconceived. Petitioner has clearly stated in para 2 of writ petition that he was appointed and confirmed in U.P. Primary Agricultural Co- operative Credit, Societies Centralize Services, Hamirpur but without impleading employer which is a necessary party, writ petition is not maintainable.
5. In a catena of decisions, this Court has held that unless institution which is ultimately liable for financial obligations, if not impleaded, the matter cannot proceed and the writ petition suffers the defect of non-joinder of necessary party and is liable to be dismissed.
6. A Division Bench of this Court in Animesh Jain Vs. Home Secretary U.P. through State of U.P. and another 2003 (52) ALR 333 held:
" Thus, we reach the inescapable conclusion that the writ is not maintainable against the Government officers or the employees of the State, it lies only against the State and if State is not impleaded, the writ is not maintainable.”
7. A Division Bench of this Court in Ganga Ram Vs. Uttar Pradesh Bhumi Sudhar Nigam, Lucknow and others (2003) RD- AH 529 held:
"Petition is liable to be dismissed as the State is not impleaded as a party as mandatorily required. (Vide Ranjeet Mal Vs. General Manager, Northern Railway, New Delhi & anr., AIR 1977 SC 1701; and Chief Conservator of Forests, Government6 of A.P. Vs. Collector & ors, (2003) 3 SCC 472."
8. Another Division Bench of this Court in the case of Jogendra Yadav and others Vs. Central Administrative Tribunal 2007(3) ESC1705 (DB) with respect to non-joinder of necessary party though in a matter of seniority held:
"In case the private respondents intended to seek any direction which would ave affected seniority of the persons who were already assigned higher position over the private respondents, their impleadment and opportunity of hearing to them was necessary. In their absence, no order could have been passed by the Tribunal adversely affecting their position in the seniority list."
9. Following the dictum laid down in Prabodh Verma (supra), this Court in Civil Misc. Mool Shanker Singh Vs. Regional Manager, Punjab National Bank,Varanasi & another (Writ Petition No. 2196 of 1994 decided on 14.12.2009) this Court held:
"The respondents no. 1 and 2, therefore, are already representing the Bank but since the financial implication lie upon the Bank, therefore, the Bank was also a necessary party to be impleaded as held by the Apex Court in Ranjeet Mal (supra) and it is for this reason that the Bank has been sought to be impleaded herein"
10. The Apex Court in Prabodh Verma Vs. State of U.P. 1984 (4) SCC 251, however held that the Court may allow impleadment of a necessary or proper party at any stage if it finds that the writ issued by the Court is likely to affect such party in any manner. The defect of non impleadment of necessary party can be allowed to be removed at any time before the final order in the matter is passed in order to avoid multiplicity of proceedings. It is only if the petitioner refuses to implead necessary parties as respondents that the writ petition may be dismissed for non joinder of necessary parties and not otherwise. The relevant observations in Prabodh Verma (supra) in para 28 of the judgment is reproduced as under :
"28. The real question before us, therefore, is the correctness of the decision of the High Court in the Sangh's case. Before we address ourselves to this question, we would like to point out that the writ petition filed by the Sangh suffered from two serious, though not incurable, defects. The first defect was that of non joinder of necessary parties. The only respondents to the Sangh's petition were the State of Uttar Pradesh and its concerned officers. Those who were vitally concerned, namely, the reserve pool teachers, were not made parties.- not even by joining some of them in a representative capacity, considering that their number was too large for all of them to be joined individually as respondents. The matter, therefore, came to be decided in their absence. A High Court ought not to decide a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution without the persons who would be vitally affected by its judgment being before it as respondents or at least by some of them being before it as respondents in a representative capacity if their number is too large, and, therefore, the Allahabad High Court ought not to have proceeded to hear and dispose of the Sangh's writ petition without insisting upon the reserve pool teachers being made respondents to that writ petition, or at least some of them being made respondents in a representative capacity, and had the petitioners refused to do so, ought to have dismissed that petition for non-joinder of necessary parties."
11. It would also be necessary at this stage to refer the observations of the Apex Court in Prabodh Verma (supra) that the High Court should not dismiss a writ petition on mere technicality but it should not condone every kind of laxity. It was with reference to lack of proper pleading by the Advocates which cause delay in disposal of the matter. It would be appropriate to refer the observation made in para 38 of the judgment as under:
"The petitioners were represented by well-known Counsel, one of them practicing in this Court. It is true that neither this Court nor any High Court should dismiss a writ petition on a mere technicality or just because a proper relief is not asked for but from this it does not follow that it should condone every kind of laxity. We would not have dwelt upon this aspect of the case but for the fact that we find that laxity in drafting all types of pleadings is becoming the rule and a well-drafted pleading, an exception. An ill-drafted pleading is an offspring of the union of carelessness with. imprecise thinking and its brothers are slipshod preparation of the case and rambling and irrelevant arguments leading to waste of time which the Courts can ill afford by reason of their overcrowded dockets."
12. In view of the settled principle laid down by the Apex Court as also this Court, U.P. Primary Agricultural Co-operative Credit, Societies Centralize Services, Hamirpur is a necessary and proper party in the instant case and without their impleadment the writ petition is not maintainable. Moreover, despite informing this lapse, learned counsel for petitioner did not make any request to allow him to implead his employer as party in the writ petition.
13. The writ petition is accordingly dismissed for want of impleadment of necessary party. No costs.
Order Date :- 26.7.2018 Siddhant Sahu